Nine Years Ago Today

my first child was born. Early. During Spring Break. I was a teacher and this was the week I had planned to do everything that I needed to do in order to prepare for my baby. Arby had different plans. On the Sunday night that was to begin my spring break, my water broke in the middle of the night. Let's just say that I was not really sure if my water had broken. I called the hospital and they said come on in -they could do a test that would let me know. We left the house without a single packed item. I didn't even bring my purse. We laughed and joked about "my situation" the entire way to the hospital. I assumed they would send me home. They did not. I was five weeks early.
My delivery was relatively easy, but we were completely unprepared for what would happen next.
As soon as Arby was born it seemed as if the entire nursing staff entered my room. We heard them say he was "singing". We didn't know this was bad. I put my hands on him for about two seconds and then he was whisked away to the NICU. I did not get to hold my sweet baby until he was seven days old. He was diagnosed with hyaline membrane disease. He was hooked up to every imaginable contraption. Between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning he crashed. He was jaundiced, he needed a blood transfusion, he needed more help breathing requiring a endotracheal tube, he needed a line that went into his stomach to feed him and they also discovered that he had contracted Group B strep from me. This can cause pneumonia or meningitis. They were treating him and hoping for the best(pneumonia).
My son was such a little fighter. At six pounds six ounces, he was the second biggest baby in the NICU, but he was in the worst shape (we did not realize how truly sick he was and how much he had to fight to live until days later - in our case I believe ignorance was bliss).
Needless to say this was not the spring break I had imagined. Nor the birth.
Every year his birthday coincides with spring break. We usually schedule his party a week or two later. A minor (yet annoying to Arby) detail in the whole scheme of things. To me his spring break birthday is now a reminder of that which is really important. Not all the stuff we buy and plans we make(like all that I had not done that I would have been so concerned about had Arby been born healthy) but the life itself - his life - and how very fortunate we are that he eventually left that hospital a healthy little boy.

It is amazing how much technology has changed since Arby was born!!! I do not know how to scan pictures and in the days before digital the first pictures I ever saved to a disk did not happen until Arby was almost one so I am unable to post any hospital pics of Arby, however I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures of my very obviously healthy Arby at age ONE.