imagine.....being a young mother to two young boys, one of which you have resuscitated over 80 times.
imagine.....going to sleep after a very hard day, only to be awakened 30 minutes later to the sound of a monitor alarming you
that, once again, your child has crashed.
imagine....looking into your child's eyes and wondering if you had made the right choices about resuscitation.
imagine....the guilt you feel when your child has post operative complications after a surgery that you were not 100% sure of in
the first place.
imagine....the odd looks people in public give you when you ask your child is he is hungry as you connect him to his feeding
pump.
imagine....the joy that fills your heart when your 19 month old baby claps for the first time.
imagine....the elation you feel when you put the new glasses on your 19 month old baby and he sees things that he has never
seen before.
imagine.....the spreading smile and laughter when, after getting new glasses, your child insists on stopping at every reflective
surface to kiss the baby!
Imagine.....that your three year old son asks you for a doll. How touching....until you bring it home and take it out of the box.
Immediately he says the baby needs something. You think "Clothes!" and run for the box of very tiny clothes that your youngest
son wore to put on the baby doll, but that wasn't his thought. He said "He needs a cannula, mommy, and monitor cords then he
can be normal."
Imagine.....the heartbreak you feel realizing that your three year old thinks all babies have oxygen and monitors like his baby
brother. Remembering that he has never really seen a "normal" baby.
Imagine....that same three year old, who asks for a stethoscope and box of bandaids for his birthday so he "can fix bubba and
make him all better" also knows the specialties of all his brothers doctors....all 8 of them, and knows what part of the body they
work on. His vocabulary is riddled with medical terms such as bradycardia, cardiac arrest, BPD, pulmonary hypertension, and
he knows the meaning of these words.
Imagine....how disturbed you are that your three year old has been just as traumatized, if not more than, as you and your
husband have been in the past 19 months.
Imagine....the frustration your three year old son feels when he really wants to play with his brother, but his brother isn't
physically capable, and doesn't know how.
Imagine....the pride that fills your being when your three year old sits at the head of your screaming 19 month old and says "It's
OK bubba, I am here, I won't let anything happen to you," as he strokes his hair while mom is cleaning a fresh incision wound.
Jayna, mom to Brayden, born at 29 weeks
