It’s days before her first birthday.  She doesn’t want to drink her bottle.  She doesn’t want to eat.  She’s sick.  Hours have gone past and more hours still and she hasn’t wet her diaper.  I’m starting to worry.

Finally she seems enthusiastic about a jar of creamed corn.  It’s always been her favorite.  She eats the whole thing and I’m thrilled because it’s fairly moist for solid food.  And then she vomits.  All that she’d eaten comes right back out.  She cries.  She vomits again and we all load up in the car to go to the emergency room.

The nurses try and tempt her with popsicles.  She want’s nothing of it…of them.  She buries her head in my shoulder and tries to sleep.

The Doctor hooks her up to an IV.  I can hear her shrieking from down the hall.  I had to leave the room.

I’m sitting on a bench, head in my hands, tears on my face and thinking about where we were 12 months ago.

We heard “Your baby stopped breathing.”  We heard “she’s been resuscitated.”  We heard “We’re sending a social worker to speak with you.”

I felt my world ending just as it had begun.  I spent days in the NICU and I prayed for that IV to come out of her arm, for her to eat well.  I tirelessly walked the corridors between my room and her bassinet to nurse her every two hours despite the surgery I’d endured.  She got well.  She came home with us on her fifth day of life and I was grateful.

Her cries soften and the Dr. tells me that the IV is in and she’s doing just fine.  I go back to the room and find her resting on her father.  She’s tired and pale and getting well.  Several hours later I’m draping a clean blanket over the leftover vomit in  her car seat and she comes home with us and again, I am grateful.

Little H at Children's June 08

Little H at Children's June 08

This post is part of my participation in MomDot’s PR Blackout week. I’ll be posting about all things “In The Dark.”  I hope you’ll also turn inward. To think about your voice. To think about your goals and to pull it all together for a week of unique content.  If you do, please share your posts in the linky widget located here.

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