Today I sat in the parking garage for thirty minutes before coming up to my sons hospital room.
I sat and tears just poured down my face. It felt like my feet just wouldn't/couldn't move. All of my will power was just drained. The thought of getting out of the car and into the elevator and up to the lobby and walking to his room just felt like stones on my chest.
Do you know what it's like to not be able to breathe?
It was that feeling. All the sudden the world was too big and his heart was too small and I was just stuck here, in a dirty dark parking garage in my car, crying.
When we're here, he doesn't feel like my baby. He doesn't feel like he belongs to me. The bars on his bed feel like a cage, keeping him in and me out. It's not truly that way, it's just how it feels. Which is why I don't stay there, in that feeling. Because it is only a feeling. And facts, sometimes, outweigh feelings.
The fact is, this is where he needs to be. Not just that he has to be, but needs to be.
The fact is, we knew this was a possibility, a reality. We accepted that.
The fact is, we got to go home for two+ weeks total, and some babies don't get to go home ever.
The fact is, I don't have to like this, I just have to show up. Even if that means I take too many walks. Even if that means I spend an hour in the cafeteria slowly eating my food. Even if I have to sleep some where else at night.
The fact is, my son knows when I am in the room, he knows my voice, he knows my face, this is enough.
The fact is, this year is going to be hard and difficult and rough, but it is only one year. What is one year compared to Eternity?
Facts.
I have to deal in facts when the bad days come rolling in, one by one, waves that crash into my heart. I tell myself, one day at a time. One more day. Each day has added up tenfold and felt like one more day of pain. Every time his heart races, so does mine. Every time he drops his oxygen saturation levels, I find it harder to breathe myself. His heart and my heart, connected in ways that only other mama's who have heart babies will understand.
They poke and prod him. Temperature checks when he was sleep, blood pressure cuffs that piss him off. When he was sound asleep. Nose cannula on his face and stickers on his chest, measuring, monitoring everything. Watching closely.
What choice do we have? To go home and wait? To watch his color change at home where there is no extra oxygen to put him on?
Our life now. This is our life. My head has accepted this. My heart still hates it.
If I could give him my whole heart and take every needle, every surgery, every day spent inside these four walls that are becoming home, I would.
I wouldn't even think twice.
My adorable little Gimpy Heart Baby. My precious son.
I wish I could give you my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment