Dear Joey,
Today was one of the hardest of my life. Definitely the hardest since I have become a mommy. I have been a bit down about your nicu stay and each day was getting harder. Each day, I would cry at your crib because I feel so horrible that you are spending your first week of life in a crib in a sterile hospital environment. But, today made all that feel like a walk in the park.
I had a dr. Appt to do my follow up on my surgery. I thought my appt was at 8:30 and it really was at 8. When I got done, I went to the nicu to love you up and was happily asking the nurses how my boy did at his feeding. I looked over at your spot and you were gone. I said "oh, my boy isn't here." at that minute, I honestly thought they had taken you for your circumcision. but, the nurses got a huge look of panic on their face and I knew something was seriously wrong. They looked so nervous and finally told me that you were in the 3rd floor nicu. You had a lot of blood in your diaper.
I was in shock. I was in tears on the way to the elevator and just trying to stay calm. When I got down here, 3 nurses were working on you getting you prepped for an iv, blood draw and X-ray. I texted your daddy and told him what I knew. I couldn't hold the tears back anymore. They asked me to leave the room for the X-ray and I was uncontrollably crying.
When i came back, the dr used words like "possibly life threatening" and "worst case scenario." He used a lot of big words that I didn't understand. What I did walk away with was the fact that something was wrong with you. It could be fatal or it could be the flu.
After we got all the news and the results that your initial set of tests were ok, you started getting fussy. For the first time in a week, you were hungry and you wanted to eat. We got you calmed down so you could sleep for awhile. As I type this, your 2nd X-ray looks good and we are waiting for more lab work tomorrow morning. We are on a 48 hour hold.
In the past, I could empathize with people who had kids with medical problems. Now, I am living this nightmare. You are so helpless. We went from a few more days of working on feeding to a life threatening incident. There is nothing I can do. There is no song lullaby that is going to make this go away. You have wiggled your way into my heart and now I am watching you digress in your healing.
All during your pregnancy, I took your health for granted. I never could have imagined this happening to us. Now, I would give absolutely anything - including my own health - to stuff you back in and give you two more weeks of baking time. If they told me what sacrifices I had to make to keep you safe and get you healthy, there is absolutely nothing that they could ask of me that would be too great. I probably thought that about Elijah but we were never presented with a situation like this to test how much I meant it. I can tell you from every fiber of my being that I know without a doubt that it is true.
In the past week, I have gone from being a miserable pregnant chic to being a mom of 2. I already love you so much that it kills me to see you in here. Please keep fighting my little one so that we can go home and start our lives together.
Love, your mommy
