Prematurity

This was a hard page for me to get through, yet it was an important story that I wanted to tell. I've done some pages about my son's prematurity and our time in the NICU, but I haven't done a new one in years. Last week I was watching the Discovery channel and they had a show on about micropreemies. I remembered that there was a time before Nico was born that I would flinch at the site of a premature baby and I would quickly flip the channel. It's ironic how life throws challenges at you that you think that you could never handle - but you do. And you come out a different, stronger person in the end.

I know just how lucky we are that Nico survived the NICU with no long-lasting effects. I watched way too many babies pass away during our two months in the hospital to take that for granted. The experience though, was horrific and it changed me. It's a very big part of my life's story.

The journaling reads:
There was a time when I could not stand to look at a sick or premature baby. I remember having to change the channel anytime those type of stories were on the news or on TLC. I just couldn’t watch. The image of those tiny fetal looking babies made me flinch. How ironic that I would become a mom at just 28 weeks gestation to a tiny, sick, 2-pound boy. I found myself right smack in the middle of a nightmare that seemingly would never end.

And so I watched.

I watched a respirator breathe for him because he couldn’t.

I watched as all of his little veins collapsed from too many IVs. They put one in his forehead.

I watched as he turned blue one day because of apnea.

I watched a team of doctors rush in to save him at 3 weeks old when he developed sepsis and almost died.

I watched as he developed a hole in his heart.

I watched when an IV leaked a caustic substance onto his skin and burned a big hole in his forearm.

For 58 days I watched my boy struggle and suffer. I couldn’t change the channel, because this was now my life. I didn’t flinch anymore and this became my normal.

In the tiny envelope at the top is a note from me to Nico. I just wanted him to know that even though this was the most difficult thing I had to go through in my life, that he was so so worth it! And how blessed and lucky we are to have him in our lives.

Okay, so on to the details of the layout - almost all of the paper, the trees and the cloud are the Quite Contrary line by My Mind's Eye (love their paper). I made the "life" banner with some twine, cardstock, and tiny rub-ons from Doodlebug. The title is from Making Memories (cork) and Thickers (aqua).