Oldest was 28 days old. It was our nightly visit to the NICU and we knew the drill pretty well at this point.
Desk check in.
Wash hands well, then hand sanitize.
Get buzzed through the door and take a right to NICU room D.
As I admired him from the isolette and stared at his monitors, alarms started to shriek.
Nurses surrounded him within seconds and the attending DR at the time came running in “here we go again” she told me.
She seemed at ease, but I was terrified as DH and I were being escorted to the waiting room , while they did whatever they needed to do. We hadn’t a clue what was happening.
Minutes seemed like hours. I was crying and shaking, convinced something tragic was happening. It was 20 minutes until someone came out to tell us what was going on.
“Come on in now” the nurse told us.
“He’s okay?” I cried.
“Oh my gosh. Yes. He’s fine. He just pulled out his intubation tube again.”
(Side note: he did this seconds after he was born and intubated. They said he was a strong 2lb 9oz baby. He continued to pull out the tube every few days. We knew this. We had never witnessed it)
I clung to DH wanting to laugh and scream at the same time. I thought he was dying for an entire 20 minutes while my little Rocky fighter was just being obstinate.
I walked in and he was being held by a nurse.
“Have you held him yet Mom?” she asked.
I hadn’t.
My son was 28 days old and I’ve only held his hand through an isolette window.
“Well I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
And so I sat in the big ugly blue recliner and my son was handed to me, as I snotted out happy tears.
28 days was a lifetime until I held
that kid and I never wanted to put him down.
I never wanted to leave his side each night he was in the NICU, but I knew he had to grow and thrive before he could come home.
And that kid did.
He grew and he thrived.
And now he’s away at college and I feel exactly like I did when he was 28 days old-
Proud as hell to be his Mom.
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