Happy 15th darling!

Fifteen years ago, I met a version of love I didn’t know could exist. Tiny, frail, fragile and wrapped in uncertainty. Aadi came early… too early, weighing 600 gms. 

Our first few days in the NICU were filled with this tight feeling in our chest that’s indescribable. One that we pray no parent has to ever go through. Seeing your child suffering and the helplessness and anger we feel knowing that we can’t do anything about it.. Little did we know that this feeling would never leave us. We relive this after every surgery.

Every time I held him to my bare chest and sang hushed lullabies, in my mind I prayed to and also cursed God in the very same breath. One day when we came to visit him in the NICU, I leaned over to his incubator and touched him through the tiny window and he wrapped his tiny hands, (fingers I had probably only seen on Barbie dolls… they were that lean and tiny), around my thumb. I knew it right then that this tiny baby is a fighter!

When Aadi came home after three months, bringing with him machines, monitors, and a vocabulary I was never prepared to learn. Words like micro premiee and Cerebral Palsy didn’t just sit in medical reports—they moved into our everyday lives, uninvited and permanent.

He was on oxygen support and there were moments where we celebrated one breath, a tiny flicker of response or if he would at least try a go at breast milk for a minute. Saju has actually kept his fingers under Aadi’s nose to check if he was still breathing, when he hasn’t moved for a while or if he has overslept than usual. When he came out of oxygen support on his first birthday, I cannot express our happiness that day! These are milestones that no one would notice, but for me, felt like fireworks!

Aadi taught us to hold fear in one hand and hope in another.

Today Aadi turns 15… and somewhere between the hospital corridors and this moment, he has taught us what resilience is.

I don’t question anymore, “why me?”, because I know for certain that Aadi came to my life to prepare me for whatever was in store for me in future. He came to me to become my sole reason for living.

This child has brought so much happiness in our lives with his beautiful smile… a smile that brightens every room he walks into.

He is our 600 grams of sunshine and that’s why we named him Aaditya.

Some stories begin with fear and unfold into something extraordinary. Baby, you were never just our challenge, you are our miracle!

Fifteen years later, we don’t just see how far you’ve come… we see how far you’ve carried us with you.

Happy birthday to the kindest soul I’ve ever known. Love you darling!