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Sunday, February 01, 2009

NICU Flashbacks & Requested Prayers...

Me holding Samantha in NICU 4 1/2 weeks after her birth.

Tonight my heart is broken for my cousin Rachael and her husband Corey. Rachael gave birth to the couple's first child on Wednesday night... two months early. Little Carrick is in NICU, breathing on his own, and from my cousin's brief email description, seems to be a fighter.

Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, they are going to need it.


I can't help but have flash backs to when Samantha was born two months early. I remember so vividly the feeling that, somehow, I had failed my child. I felt betrayed by my own body and angry that there was nothing I could do to make things better. I was terrified of loosing my daughter before I ever really had the chance to know her and I wanted to find a way to protect her from all of the pain that comes along with an extended NICU stay.

Mostly I just felt helpless and confused.

How and why could this happen to us? What could I have done differently to make her enter the world healthy and full term? How did my WHOLE WORLD suddenly shift to dramatically revolve around this tiny piece of me? How is it possible to love someone so small SO much more than I have ever loved anyone, including myself?


My heart is broken for my cousin, not because I think her son will not survive, quite the opposite. My heart is broken because I have been in her shoes, and I know how it feels to be a mother who must watch her child fight for every step, knowing there is nothing you can do except watch, wait, and pray that God will pull you through.

2 comments:

guttergirl said...

My heart goes out to your cousin. That is the most stressful time in a person's life. My twins were also two months early. It was heartwrenching. I think the worst part of it was not being able to hold my babies. They were too fragile to touch for the first month. Oh how I hated those nurses who were allowed to lovingly hold my babies while I was not. Don't get me wrong. Those nurses were wonderful. I was just jealous that strangers were able to give my babies what I could not. I pray for your cousing that her son comes home soon!

Richard and Edi Halstead said...

Your cousin and her son are in all our prayer