Yesterday I was in such a state that I almost didn’t even want to go down to the hospital. I was so emotional and distraught that my baby didn’t need me, that I didn’t think I could handle seeing him at all. I couldn’t stop crying all day long, and when I went to make dinner Bear found me ten minutes later standing at the kitchen counter with my face buried in my arms sobbing my heart out.
Bear suffers from a charming disease I call, “Prince Charming Complex.” He is a fixer. Even more than that, he is a rescuer. Particularly of damsels in distress. Being the hard-headed feminist that I am, there are times when this makes me want to roll my eyes at him as I save my own dang self. But along with being a hard-headed feminist, I am also not stupid, so I’ve learned to be very very grateful for his “disease” through the years.
Last night Bear swung into action. He called the NICU, explained the situation, and begged the nurses to find a way to let me hold Atticus. They agreed that as long as he was stable, they’d help me find a way.
We raced down to him as fast as we knew how, and when we got there he wasn’t stable. His blood sugar was low and his oxygen saturation was all over the map. Our supernurse started taking care of his blood sugar while we waited and prayed he’d settle down enough to qualify as stable. He started fussing even more from all the moving and poking, so I started to talk to him and cheer him on.
There’s a very popular kids book called I Love You Forever. In that book a mom sings a song to her little boy over and over again that goes:
I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be
Years ago I made up a tune to that little poem. We also changed the line, “As long as I’m living,” because as Latter Day Saints we believe in eternal families, so we thought, “From now to forever” was more appropriate. While I was pregnant I’d sing this little song to my bump all the time, and when I saw Atticus in trouble I started singing it again.
It was like magic. He settled. He started breathing better. His nurse was able to finish her work and he stabilized enough that with the help of our supernurse and two respiratory therapists, we managed to get him and all his cords and wires transfered into my arms where I held him and kissed him for two hours. And the nurse kept commenting on how much he loved it, how good his stats were and how regularly he was breathing.
It took nearly two weeks without holding him to break me. But those two precious hours are going to be enough to get me through.