Remembering

Only some of you know my extreme panic at this time of year. I will have to say that THIS year has been a lot easier, as they said it would with time. I am not sure if it is holiday stress on top of remembering Matthew's birthday, just before his first birthday I was a complete and total mess. My coworkers saw the worst of it. It hit me the day of his birthday what was wrong. While I do think my postpartum depression was bad and I just never admitted it to anyone, I cannot begin to explain the guilt that I carry with me every day for Matthew's pain and suffering. This year, after watching a childhood friend lose her baby, I had a lot of questions about why Matthew was spared and her child was not. To this day, a little over a year later, she still will not speak to me, and I really cant say that I blame her.

When Matthew was a few months old, we took a trip to Macon to the eye doctor. We had to get off at the same exit as the hospital and I had a flashback and a complete meltdown. Brian looked at me like I was crazy and reminded me that he was IN the backseat with me. I knew that, but it was still a moment of panic. Another day as we were sleeping on the couch snuggled up with Matthew on my chest, the news had a story about premature babies, I heard the beeps of the monitors from the baby's pulse ox dropping and I jumped up. He was 7 months old and I knew it was crazy, but it still scared me.

I question myself every day that if I had done something different, or had put my foot down that we were NOT delivering that day or insisted that I deliver in Macon, would things have been different. I have poured over his medical records trying to see what went wrong.

So tonight while he was running around me screaming and playing, I got out his things from the NICU and I remembered without panic and for the first time, was able to hold them without crying.

You don't really expect for your baby to be whisked away......or for a strange doctor to come in and tell you that something is wrong. I cant really remember what Dr. Goodin said, I know it was something like, "Your baby is very sick and I want to send him to another hospital." I know that Brian was to my right, but I really don't remember him either. The one thing that I DO remember is the look on my sister's face! I am pretty sure it was a carbon copy of mine. The next couple of hours sort of run together. I begged to see him, but he was not stable so they wouldn't let us, the NICU team finally got there and she wheeled him in to let us say goodbye. I remember how warm it was in the incubator. He looked so different, when he was born, he was gray and now he was pink. He looked like a doll. I don't think I stopped crying for the next few hours. Your arms and tummy feel so empty.

Early the next morning, I finally was discharged and we headed up there. Brian had tried to prepare me for it. He was off the vent and just on a nasal cannula. Surfactant is a miracle drug. But he still had wires and tubes everywhere. They try and do all procedures and blood work while the parents are not there, but Matthew's feet were black and blue from all of the poking. He had an iv, heart monitors, apnea monitors, a pulse ox monitor and I don't even know what else.
He seemed so tiny to us, but honestly we were the biggest baby in the NICU! Here are his tiny diapers compared to what he wears now:

They did let me hold him for a few minutes later that day. I remember thinking how crazy it was that you had to have permission to hold your baby. I cried the entire time. Then we let Brandon and Brooke come back and see him, then Mom, Dad and Lei came back. Brad had already been the day before with Brian and Terri actually met them at the hospital. That's how I got the first pictures of him.We made a speedy recovery by NICU standards. In just over a week, Matthew had his oxygen turned down, learned to suck, swallow and breathe on his own, moved to the progressive side of the nursery (where you could hold them all you wanted!) and then to the Level II nursery the night before we were discharged. I can remember me and Brian fighting over who's turn it was to hold and feed him.

The entire way home, I panicked and kept my hand on his chest to make sure he was breathing. We met Brad at one of the exits so he could see him. Then we went home to see Brandon and Brooke. It was rough, and by NO means would I want to do it again, but it made me appreciate all 3 of my kids even more. And makes me SO glad that we are able to see THIS: