As soon as we walked in, I recognized a couple of nurses that took care of TJ and immediately had to hold back tears. I knew it would be an emotional day, but I didn't realize my emotions would be right there on the surface. TJ's primary nurse had called the day before and told us she wasn't able to get the day off work and then she had to call in sick to work so we wouldn't even be able to pop in and say hi. Didn't even occur to me to ask her if we could meet somewhere for coffee. Anyway, once we got there, we just sort of wandered around; they had an isolette set up with the machines and IV's and TJ stood in front of it to get his picture taken. Fighting back more tears here.
More nurses recognized us, well, our name - one nurse once said to me, We always remember the 24-weekers. Obviously TJ looks like a boy now instead of a baby. And we've aged. Some more than others. TJ had his face painted - Spidey on one cheek and the Green Goblin on the other cheek.
TJ had a great time playing on the Jungle Jim or whatever it's called. I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of children there wearing nametags. Lots of twins, even triplets and only 1 family that I recognized. I was looking for another family, but being in the NICU we were not allowed to look at other people's babies and our lives at that time consisted of getting to the hospital and finding a decent parking spot, running up the stairs to the NICU (we were in good shape at that time), washing up and saying hi to the cleaning staff (one cleaner there looked like Dolly Parton with a bad make-up and lipstick job), saying hi to TJ and the nurse on duty and asking how his day was, pumping breastmilk (they asked me to stop bringing in breastmilk because their freezer was full - I was a human milk machine - more info than you needed to know, sorry), staring at TJ for a few hours, pumping breastmilk and going home. So it left very little time to socialize and meet other people. It makes me really sad to think that there were all these parents going through the same thing with their babies and feeling the same deep, intense loneliness that I felt. One of my comments upon leaving the hospital was that there needs to be some sort of support group for the parents, just so they know they're not alone.
OK, back to Saturday. We had lunch and saw TJ's doctor! I wanted to hug him! Dr. Lee. What a wonderful man. He remembered us, or else he's just a really fantastic actor who seemed interested in our lives. Fighting back more tears.
Then it was time for group pictures. There were at least 70 children present - all low birthweight babies born at this particular hospital in 1999-2000. Way too many children. Really very sobering. I saw 3 children in wheelchairs and I saw one blind child. Many with hearing aids and even more with glasses. TJ was supposed to be one of the children in a wheelchair. TJ is supposed to have cerebral palsey. He even has a small cist at the front of his brain. TJ is supposed to have something wrong with his left side. He has a week eye. He wears glasses. He is one of the sweetest, friendliest, most easy-going kids I've ever had the pleasure to know. Another tearful moment as pictures were taken. I'm not going to post a group picture to protect everyone else's privacy.
Then it was time to leave. TJ got a t-shirt and a gift bag filled with 3M products - every kid needs a reflective piece of velcro...to go along with his decorative roll of tape. But they also had a paint set which TJ used to paint his face with when we got home. And they gave the mom's each a carnation for Mother's Day. Now I couldn't hold back the tears as we walked to the truck.
Mother's Day was nice, but it wasn't important to me this year. It didn't matter that nobody helped do dishes or clean up from lunch. It didn't matter that I still did laundry and it was really just like all our other Sundays. What mattered is that my children are healthy. And soon, I will have all of them home with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment