I recently toured the NICU at the hospital where I've
started working. A woman I had just met walked me through the hallways pointing
out the rooms where tiny babies were being treated.
I tried not to, but I got teary. I couldn't help it.
All I could think about was when August and Finley were born, the weeks they spent in the NICU, the machines that monitored them day and night, the nurses who stayed
vigilant 24 hours a day to make sure my sons were safe.
I thought about how, after my C-section, my two babies were brought into my field
of vision only momentarily as the doctor sewed me back up, and then whisked away for immediate care. I didn't know it then, but August was in serious distress.
I am embarrassed to admit I was so overwhelmed with the experience, the discomfort and lights and doctors and noises and pain killers that I barely registered the moments—at 8:32 p.m. and 8:33 p.m.—when I became a mother two times over.
My husband, sister-in-law and dad all got to see August and
Finley right away, but I was strapped to a gurney and pumped with meds. The
next day, the NICU was closed until the late afternoon because a critically ill
baby was undergoing surgery. I sat in my hospital room in pain, nursing my
wounds and weirdly disconnected from the two tiny beings I had given birth to.
I fell in love with my sons the moment I saw them. I stroked
their tiny hands. I couldn't wait to hold them. I felt like I lived in the NICU
for the three weeks the boys were there.
Yet it is really only now—as August and Finley approach
their second birthday—that I truly feel like a mom.
The first two years of parenthood were a blur of sheer,
unfathomable exhaustion. My daily life didn't feel like something anyone could
rightly call “normal.” I staggered to work on a fraction of the sleep I’d been
used to. I rushed home in a frenzy, fighting traffic at the end of each day,
desperate to squeeze in extra moments with the boys. I waited for life to stabilize
somehow.
Somewhere along the line when I wasn't looking—or maybe it
was only a few days ago—I started to feel like myself again.
Now, as I mentally prepare to have a bouncy castle set up in our
tiny back yard and research how to make a low-sugar cake and watch August and
Finley become more of themselves—sweet, mischievous, cuddly, independent,
smart, funny, musical, adventurous, awesome little dudes—every day, I feel the
joy of motherhood so profoundly that it takes my breath away.
I think about those babies in the NICU who I saw just last
week and I am so thankful for the progress my family has made in the
last two years. I feel like falling to my knees in thanks. And with all my
heart I hope the parents of those babies have the chance to order a bouncy
castle of their own in two years.
August and Finley, you turned my world upside down. Thank
you. I love you.
