Letters to Landon

To my perfect baby boy, You turned 8 weeks old yesterday! How -- oh HOW -- is that possible? You are growing so fast.  Over the last 8 weeks, we have had a lot of help. Don't get me wrong...you are a VERY easy baby. I honestly thought it would be harder, but you are so chill and chunky and squishy and lovable that even all the sleepless nights and dirty diapers were...kinda fun! The day you were born, you grandma was staying with me and your dad in preparation for your arrival. The day you came home from the hospital, your nanuma, ThaTha, and auntie Swathi came down to see you too. Since then, your two grandmas have been swapping hanging out at our house to help me out. Well, it has now been 5 days that me and you are by ourselves! It has mostly been just me and you. Your dad is in his last few months of surgical residency. He is currently on his hardest/most time intensive rotation - Vascular surgery. He unfortunately started this rotation right when you were born, but lucki

To my perfect squishy baby boy, You are seven weeks old today...SEVEN! How is that even possible??? Time is moving way too fast. I tell you every day to stay tiny and that I want you to be a tiny baby for ever. However, I am also just so happy to see what a healthy big boy you are becoming! You are so much more awake during the days. You are smiling at mommy's face, giggle in your sleep, love staring at your monkeys on your bouncy chair, and enjoy milk more than anything else. We are still struggling to sleep longer hours, but you do give me a good 4 hour stretch almost every night! This last month has seriously flown by. Your Nanuma Sujatha was here for the first part of the month and your grammy Pati has been here these last two weeks. Everyone fights over holding you because your cuddles are the best. We have to actively remember to put you down for tummy time because we all just want to hold you all the time! We had our first two outings - the first outing about a week ago

To my sweet baby boy, You are sleeping sweetly again beside me, so again I get time to write you. Tonight, I want to tell you about the scariest thing that your dad and I have ever experienced, which was when you were four days old and had to be admitted to the NICU for jaundice. As a pediatrician, I have treated probably about 100 babies with jaundice...its something so common, and something that as a resident, I would fight over getting on my team, because all the patients were cute and I always thought of jaundice as something that was not a big deal at all. Well, let me tell you - it is a COMPLETELY different story when its your baby that has jaundice. On the first morning after you were born, we were told by the newborn doctor that we had ABO incompatibility, which basically means that my blood type and your blood type are different and my antibodies started to attack your blood cells, which causes jaundice. We had your jaundice level checked and unfortunately it reached a l

My sweet baby boy Landon, As I am writing you, you are sleeping peacefully next to me, safely in your bassinet. You occasionally make tiny grunts or will have a sweet smile come across your face, making me wonder just what you are dreaming about. Yesterday, you turned 1 month old! I cannot believe how quickly this last month has flown by. In some ways, I feel like I have known you forever and can't remember my life before you were in it, but in other ways, I feel like the day you came into this world was just yesterday. Before it gets too far away and some of the small details start to get confused, I want to make sure I write to you exactly what happened on January 28, 2019 -  the day you were born. It was Sunday night/Monday morning. I was 38 weeks + 5 days pregnant. At around 1:30 AM, I started to have contractions. Your dad was asleep, so instead of just waking him up, I thought I would try to tough it out to make sure what I was feeling was the real deal. Well, that last