Imagine...waking up at 2:00 in the morning thinking you've just wet the bed and as you make your way to the bathroom you
realize that's not urine but lots and lots of blood you've tracked across the floor.
Imagine...as you sit on the toilet hemorrhaging, trying to calm your husband's sheer terror because you're more afraid he's going
to have a heart attack than anything else at the moment.
Imagine...after 2 weeks in a labor and delivery room, while they held off labor, suddenly being urgently rushed to the OR while
they strap your arms to boards, hold an oxygen mask over your face, rip off your gown and start to shave your private area as
they wheel you down the hallway for an emergency c-section.
Imagine...awakening from emergency c-section surgery in a blur of anesthesia and morphine wondering if you've died.
Imagine...seeing your baby for the first time, 2 days after his birth, in a really bad Polaroid photo. And to you he looks like
some strange monkey baby in a science experiment.
Imagine...being told your tiny baby's kidneys are shutting down and there's nothing the doctors can do about it. He will most
certainly die within the next few hours. Only hours later, his kidneys are doing well and he's most certainly going to live. Then
going through the same exact thing the very next week.
Imagine...your newborn baby is so frail you can literally see every vein in his body, see his heartbeat move his chest and his
bladder contract when he urinates. So tiny you could hold his entire body in the palm of your hand, his leg is the same exact size
as you middle finger and your husband's wedding band swimmingly fits all the way up his leg.
Imagine...getting up at 5:00am every morning to drive 2+ hours, usually through blizzard conditions, to the hospital your 5
month old baby has been in since birth so you can make his 8:00am feeding, then staying there until 10:00 at night and rolling
into bed at 1:00am only to do it all over again the very next morning.
Imagine...after 5 long months you finally get to take your precious baby home from the hospital where you settle down in a
rocking chair with the feeding tube, the pulse oximeter and apnea monitor to watch a Bulls/Knicks game you had tickets to and
feeling nothing but absolute bliss.
Imagine...your child has cerebral palsy, failure to thrive, multiple medical problems, and behavioral problems and when you
take him back to visit the hospital where he was born, all the nurses and doctors are amazed at how "well" he's doing.
Laura Williams, mom to Conor, 24 weeker now 3-1/2
