As my little man is sitting quite comfortably and quietly in his lamb swing, I decided to take some time to reflect on the events of the last two weeks . . .
On, January 6, 2012, my sweet Nathan was born! I won't take the time to write out his birth story just yet, but that will be coming in the near future, too. The basics:
1/1/12-1/5/12: horrible back pain
0500: water broke
0530: arrived at the hospital
0530-0820: contractions every 1-2 minutes
0829: c-section and a sweet new baby boy!
As you may already know, Nathan spent the first 9 days of his precious life in the NICU at Pinnacle's Harrisburg Hospital. While Adam and I knew we wanted to deliver somewhere that had a phenomenal NICU, we never once imagined that our baby would actually need such services. After all, the NICU wasn't supposed to be for babies born at 36.5 weeks to an otherwise healthy mom, right? Needless to say, though, we were (and are) utterly grateful for the awesome nurses and doctors who helped our sweet boy get healthy. We can never repay you!
In those 9 days, I don't think we did anything besides cry, pray and worry. I have always been a worrier--according to my mom, I was born with a worried look on my face. (This is apparently something that runs in our family because Nathan was also born with a worried look on his face).
This, however, was a different kind of worry. This was a worry that made my heart ache like I never knew it could. I ached because I couldn't help him, even though I work in the medical field. I cried because I couldn't take his pain away. I couldn't make his digestive system work. I couldn't breathe for him. I wondered if this is how my own mom felt every time I had to have knee surgery, when I was diagnosed with cancer or was getting radiation. If it was, then she's even stronger than I ever realized. I even told my mom that she should've warned me better that being a mom would show me emotions I never knew. She laughed and simply said, "just wait."
After I was discharged from Pinnacle 4 days after my c-section, Adam and I continued to visit sweet Nathan in the NICU twice a day--those were the hardest trips we ever had to make. We were always so anxious as to what condition he would be in when we got there. Would his oxygen needs be down? Would he be taking in any more milk? Would he have fewer wires or tubes hooked to him? I must say, I never felt a higher high than seeing his medical needs decrease a little bit each time we visited him. We continued to long for the day we could take him home.
Finally, on January 15, 2012, we got to bring our little boy home with us. I have never seen Adam drive more carefully than he did the day we brought our love home.
Nathan will continue to bring us heartache for lots of different reasons. . . I'm just so thankful that he's healthy and will be around to do so.
