My Newborn Moment

As a new mother there are certain things you expect to happen. There are certain experiences you expect to have such as sleepless nights, and piles of laundry that need to be done. But sometimes life throws you a curve ball you didn't expect and yet you find through that curve ball one of the best experiences of your life.

My son had a few health problems in the beginning of his life which resulted in him having surgeries the last of which was his open heart surgery to repair his VSD (ventricular septum defect). This obviously was a terrifying experience as it as the first surgery out of all his surgeries that truly could have resulted in his death. Nothing can prepare a new mother for this type of fear or this type of situation. However he came through fine and everything that needed to get repaired got repaired. In the five days before his surgery and for a couple of days after-wards my son was hooked up to a breathing tube and was kept sedated. After he came out of surgery a chest tube among other things were included in the machines he was connected to. In short I wasn't able to hold my son for almost a week.

I remember looking down at him in his crib with all the machines beeping around me and his PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) nurse coming in and getting his stats. Then she looked at me and said "Would you like to hold him?" I could feel the tears burning the back of my eyes as I nodded, touching my son's face lightly. She said "Let me just get some things done out here and I'll come in and help get him out of his crib and into your arms."

I cannot think of enough words to describe how good it felt to hold my son. After the heart surgery especially but the reason this was so wonderful was I knew that this would be the last time we were in the hospital save for typical kid injuries like broken bones or high fevers in the middle of the night. The last thing that was "wrong" with my son was finally fixed. And I got to hold him again after not being able to for a long time for any new mom. And my son felt it too. After our session of cuddling, his own breathing and blood pressure evened out so in addition to being helpful for me it helped him heal a little faster as well.

It's hard to go through what my husband and I went through in the first few months of Trio's (our son's) life. While things could have been worse arguably they could have been better as well but I think it's a good thing to find good things in the trying times we had. But as far as experiences go, this one is one that ranks up there with all the great firsts; it was the first time I held my son and I knew that for the moment and for the most part he was completely healthy.