Hospital Moms

I am a hospital mom. I coined this phrase in my head one day while visiting my four month old daughter Jakse at the hospital. Jakse has lived in hospitals her entire short life. She was born at a world famous hospital in Baltimore but has since been moved to a smaller facility. Size makes no difference to me, because to me, it is all the same. Every day, I visit my daughter to read to her, play with her, marvel over the milestones she hits, mourn over the milestones that are late, bathe her, feed her, tickle her, and love her. It is never enough. When I leave at the end of the day, I feel like a bad mother, and I worry that people around me think it too.

Right now, I live in a temporary housing facility full of hospital moms. We're all different from each other and all alike in the same breath. Some of us have to leave our babies (no matter how old you are, you're STILL our babies) in the hospital at the end of the day, and some of us get to bring them back to the house with us. Yet we understand each other in some private way. Our own personal pain is preserved for 2:00 a.m. visits to the kitchen, and we all bear the same look: battered, tired, sagging, and aging. Almost every hospital mom I've met seems to float within a personal fenced in perimeter. Guarded, our barriers seem to say, "Do not communicate with me. You are allowed to meet my eyes and share with me a small smile, but no more." We are tough. We save tears for long showers taken with the excuse of a backache or movies and books that allow us to cry without looking like we're crying for our children, and secretly, ourselves.

Some of us forget how to smile. We have snatched our children up in frustration, said plenty that we regret, yelled at nurses and doctors, made them cry, and perhaps politely been told never to return. We fall asleep at the strangest moments, in the strangest places, or we can't sleep at all and can be seen by the blue glow of a television or computer. We are the nurses that the nursing industry is so desperate for, but most of us cannot stand the idea of a career in nursing because we experience enough of it in our personal lives.

When my daughter was first born, I was an inpatient along with her, and while I didn't quite feel as connected to her as I had hoped, it was comforting to know that I could go down the hall whenever I felt like it to go see her for any length of time. I used to be the kind of person who lived every day for itself, for the richness and quality of that particular day, and so on and so forth. Even up to the time I was in in the hospital with my daughter, that's the kind of person I was. I thought that everything would happen in its own time if it was meant to be. I still believe that, but you have to understand that now there's an extra facet that I cannot ignore. I am the keeper of a small life that is at the same time somehow bigger than mine, and in order to respect that, I have to plan ahead for her. All moms know this about their children's lives, but I think hospital moms know it better and with a fiercer conviction, perhaps because we know even as we're helping our children live each day to the fullest, like it's the last day on earth, we have to secure into place doctor's appointments, upcoming surgeries and procedures, therapies, etc. Somehow, we have to blend the idea of living for now and planning for the future.

I am constantly envious of the parents of well babies. As hospital moms, it is thrown in our faces regularly that the lives we live are not "normal." We leave the hospital and re-enter the real world only to see healthy children, smiling faces, laughing families, or simply, the picture of normalcy. I don't like judging people or coming to conclusions too quickly, but I can't help secretly thinking that moms of well babies and healthy children who have never had a physical therapy session, a major surgery, a round of chemo, a bone lengthening procedure, or what have you, just don't know. They don't know how lucky they are, and they don't know the degree to which we see them take it for granted.

If we have ever been undecided about anything in our lives, somehow the very existence of our special children makes us more ready than ever to start making the tough decisions about ourselves and our lives. There is no special requirement that says that we have to admit anything to anyone, but in our hearts we know that we are ready to take the next step, whether it's work, school, or finally realizing a dream that only lived on the edges of our conciousness before. Our children somehow instill faith and strength inside us and we know that it's okay if we fail, because it doesn't change the fact that we tried for them.

Strangely and sadly, although hospitals are not places we have chosen for our children, over time it becomes familiar, whether it takes a week, a month, or a year. Some of us find comfort in the smells, sounds, and sights of the hospital. Without a doubt, whether you're in Maine or California, hospitals never really change, and for the most part, you know what to expect. Some of us dread hospitals and develop phobias and aversions that we hide for our children. The rest of us come to a halfway point between the feelings of comfort and dread, knowing that yes, we're here yet again, but we've been here before and are comforted by the familiar: the monitors and beeps, the kind faces, worn magazines, fold out chairs, the smell of disinfectant covering up that sick smell.

We are hospital moms. We do everything we can to fight for our children and to be their constant in a less than average life. Our eyes are opened to things in the world that the everyday person can't see, and we're better people for having that ability. We are compassionate but guarded, proud but quiet (sometimes), and we wouldn't trade our babies for all the money in the world. We are our children's superheroes.