When your child becomes sick you feel so powerless, desperate, sad, and many other feelings...they are like a turmoil inside of you. You pray, you want everybody else to pray with you, and for your child.
When Max, our son, was born I got to see him one minute and then the nurses rolled him away. I didn't understand at that time why, I was so happy to have kissed his little forehead, and my tears didn't stop rolling down my checks. I was totally blown away having another wonderful child to nurture.
An hour later they rolled me into the room, and that is when they told me that Max couldn't spend any time together with me in my room. He had swallowed fluid into his lungs when being born. They also discovered he had too high a white blood cell count; he had an infection and was immediately given antibiotics.
I couldn't get off my bed since I had had a C-section. After three hours I called on the nurse, I was crying, I wanted to see my son, hold and bond with him. There I sat alone in a room with our son sick in another room down the hallway. So close but in another way so far away. It seemed like a world away!
Five hours later I called and demanded to get down and see him. I didn't care about my own pain and the problems to get the legs working. It is amazing when you know your child is in danger your own pain goes away.
I managed to walk to the nursing room. There he laid in a too big diaper, under warming lights breathing so fast. Actually, they call it "grunting", the process of transitioning from a liquid-filled world to our air-filled one. And, he wasn't transitioning correctly. His little chest bounced up and down, I could tell he was struggling. The needle looked huge in his little hand. I cried!
I held his little tiny hand and told him to "hang in there, my little buddy".
I had to leave him in the nursery room, and go back to my own room and bed. All night, he was monitored by the staff. They said it was sometimes normal for a newborn, especially a boy, extra especially a Cesarean birth, to struggle a little bit extra to transition. I just needed to rest and work on healing myself.
They didn't tell me until the next morning how worried they had been for Max. They weren't sure he was going to make it!
We had to stay four days in the hospital. I couldn't call anyone, I didn't want to, I just sat and held him, talked to him.
I didn't know how to pray to God, I felt selfish asking him to help my son. Why would he listen to me and not other parents that maybe were losing their child?
I knew I couldn't negotiate with him either, nor making him promises of becoming a better person, or becoming religious.
I just felt fragile and lonely and helpless. Even with my darling husband's love and support.
Today seven weeks later he is sleeping healthy in his Baby Bjorn, sitting with support on my desk while I am typing this--memory. It seems such a long time ago but I can still feel the incredible pain in my heart.
For a couple of years now, since Olivia was an infant, we have been donating monthly to an organization that are helping children with cancer. Saint Jude. Our brush with uncertainty reaffirms in our hearts the goodness of helping those who help the little ones, and their parents. We only briefly had to deal with some mild uncertainty and worry. You who must cope with dreaded cancer in little bodies, and say goodbye to your children far too young, are the real heroes. My heart and hope goes out to all you parents and to your brave little warriors.
You guys, you've got the Amore!
