I.  Despise.  Medical.  Paperwork.

Not only is it time-consuming and head-swim-inducing, but it also always invokes an emotional reaction out of me.  It is hard reliving Kiran’s brief but extensive medical history.  It is hard when I realize I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who the doctor was when I was giving birth, but I could tell you the cardiologist’s name who was on the floor the first week of his life.  And I could tell you every other specialists’ name since then.

I also can’t recall – and this makes me feel like a poor mother, despite my best efforts to show myself grace – when he did certain developmental things.  I don’t remember how old he was when he first smiled; I simply remember how relieved we were when we saw it.  How thrilling it was that he had the energy to smile!

With all of it – I have to admit – I don’t even have a baby book for him.  I don’t write down milestones.  We do try to take pictures every month, but we are often weeks late on that!  My only true record of his life is here on this computer screen…and in the deepest places of my heart, where it all resides.

One of these days, I will organize all of his medical information, and it will make filling these forms out an absolute breeze.  Until that day comes (likely when he’s in college), I will continue to have to spend many minutes – or hours – compiling all of the information that is wanted.

But not tonight.  Even armed with chocolate and pinot noir, my brain can’t handle it tonight.  My heart isn’t up for it tonight.

Tonight, I will simply try to remind myself why I can’t hold all the information in my head.  I will remind myself why it doesn’t matter that I don’t know who caught him as he came into this world.  I will do my best to love all I do know, the important stuff, and all I am willing to do for my son, even when it makes me want to pull out my hair.

If filling out medical forms isn’t the purest form of love, I don’t know what is.