I feel so energy zapped right now. Terrible twos is in full swing.
Anyways, back on track.
So I've just had this tiny wrinkled Benjamin Buttons baby and he's been med flighted to a hospital about 45 mins away. About 16 hours after my emergency c-section, the Dr. comes in the room. I was in horrible pain and I felt clammy and awful but I smiled and lied. Soon I was discharged and headed to see my baby.
The neonatal staff was amazing. They made me up a room to stay in just down the hall from where jude lay sleeping. I could go see him anytime that I wanted to. And I did. I put my hands in the small port holes on his box and laid my hand on his little orange back covered in fuzz. I cried. I loved him so much and hadn't been able to hold him yet. He got better as the days went by.
The entire time I was there I felt this undeniable vague feeling that I "didn't feel good". I was weak and exhausted. I couldn't eat or sleep. The worst part was the horrible consistent cough. If I laid down I felt like I couldn't get a breath down. The nurses in the unit urged me to go down to the emergency room but I couldn't leave my baby. What if something happened and I wasn't there?
After 7 days I finally got hold him. His weight was hardly noticeable. His little body plugged into IVs and wrapped in a blanket in my arms felt golden. I loved him with every ounce of my soul. He was beautiful to me. He opened one small blue eye and stared at me. I kissed his little hands and his little feet and felt whole.
My superhero baby made it out of neonatal 3 months premature at a whopping 4 pounds in 11 days.
I took him home that morning and coughed all day long. My mother finally convinced me to go to the hospital at about 9pm. In triage they rushed me to the back and began sticking me with needles and shoving oxygen masks over my face.
My mother just stood looking terrified holding the car seat carrier with a tiny baby sleeping soundly. As the strong pain medications flooded my body I began losing all thoughts of the seriousness of the situation. I lived in the shining flow of opiate illusion. It felt lovely. Like laying on clouds covered in butterflies.
The rest is an absolute blur. I was put into a chemically induced coma and onto a ventilator. I had severe congestive heart failure and kidney failure. My gallbladder was full of stones. My kidneys had stopped filtering calcium at some point and my organs were partially calcified. It was a total shutdown.
I was out for 6 weeks. My mother took over the care of my son. When I awoke I cried and cried. I had missed so much. But I held him in my arms the day I got out and loved him like I had never skipped a moment.
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