7 years ago, and the ever-important 8 days later.

When people ask me about a moment in my life when something REALLY made a difference, one of three things come to mind. And the first, is August 1oth, 2003.

You see, I gave birth that morning to a strawberry-blond fuzz-covered baby boy. Nameless, he was quiet and a month early, and was in MUCH of a rush to get into the world, as I NEARLY gave birth in the car. We got to the hospital at 6:20 am... but I was already fully dilated. By 6:41, my beautiful boy arrived.

We had a homebirth with our first baby, LL, so we decided to be informed of BOTH options, and had a planned hospital birth with our second.

It was a great day.
Family came to visit. Everyone adored this little munchkin. I introduced LL to her baby brother, and the pride and love on her face was as radiant as my own watching the two of them together. We received gifts.. balloons, flowers, and even a little tiny blue stuffed teddybear. Amazingly, the bear was the EXACT size of my boy. We took a picture.

Chris and I had two names we liked. It was either Ryley or "Bear". When he asked which name I wanted, I was a little afraid to admit that I liked "Bear" better, because we already HAD a family member with the same name. Looking at the baby, I told him I thought he looked more like a Bear, and Chris smiled a relieved smile-- apparently, we both felt the same way.

Bear was sleeeeeeepy. He didn't wake up for ANYTHING. He didn't want to nurse. He didn't want to play or visit the world around him. He just wanted to SLEEP.

By the end of the day, the nurses were getting concerned that he wouldn't eat. They were bringing in lactation consultants to teach me all the million things they thought would help, and then all the million things they concluded I MUST be doing WRONG...
blah blah blah.

Turns out, my boy just wanted to SLEEP!

After one nurse came in, I was past being frustrated. The rest of the family had gone for dinner, and I wanted to join my little man and take a nap. But they were relentless-- enforcing a nurse-period for 'baby'.

At one point, I had one very annoying and pushy persistent nurse come in and try to feed him. She took a bottle of formula, trying every WITCH which way to get him to swallow it. I got up to go to the bathroom, leaving her with her futile attempts.

When I returned, Bear was back in his bassinet beside my bed. She looked at him, and asked me, "Is he always that colour?" I stared at him, thinking... Uh, I've known him for less than 12 hours... I have NO IDEA what colour he's supposed to be. I mean, when he came out, he most definitely WASN'T that colour, dumbnuts! She checked his heart rate, and suggested that he's probably tired and needs a bit of oxygen to perk up.

She didn't freak out or anything, just informed me that she was going to take him to the nursery for a second, and she left with him. Not worried, I took a minute to locate my shoes. It was then that I heard the intercom through the halls. Panic-stricken voices were calling STAT and NICU and CRASH CARTS...and feet were racing through the corridors. It was at that moment that my mothering instincts clicked in and I knew that the commotion was because of my baby.

I walked out into the hallway, watching running nurses and doctors and specialists with carts get wheeled into the nursery. I stood in that hallway, frozen. Not with fear...just..frozen. Holding my arms around myself, I looked and saw a lifeless, bluish grey body. A perfect little strawberry-blond fuzz-covered six pounds of an angel. I knew my boy was not alive at that moment.
And in my grief, I found something amazing.

I don't think I've ever tried to tell someone on paper the significance of that moment. I don't think I'll do it justice here. But, that very moment that I felt POOR ME, and asked God not to take my baby...I felt IMMEDIATELY lucky that I had been his mother for even just the day. That I was SOOOO blessed to have been given such a perfect soul that it only needed a body, and went back home to heaven to wait for me. I didn't 'convince' myself of this. In this type of moment, you don't get to "convince" yourself of much of ANYTHING. This, gratefully, was a gift that God gave to my heart, knowing I needed it most right then.

Mothers were all leaving their rooms to stand at their doorways to watch. Some holding their newborns in their loving arms, some with their terror-stricken faces just stood there, hands over their mouths in shock and pity. They weren't pitying the baby...I realized they were pitying me. They were bonding with me. Supporting me.

A nurse looked over. I must have had that look. She approached me, asking if I was "Mom". I could only nod. Holding me, she took me inside to watch this continue. I know she said lots of other things.. but I didn't hear her.

Eventually they wheeled him over into the intensive care nursery, and somehow I walked behind his bubble, supported by the nurse who literally held me up.

It was a long night.
He didn't move. He was poked and prodded. And nobody knew anything. What was wrong? What happened? What tests could we run? Will he make it through the hour? Through the night?

When Chris returned to the hospital, we stood at his bedside, crying. Bear was covered in machines. He was lifeless, were it not for the monitors that told us otherwise. I tried to sing the lullaby my mother sang to us for him, because the doctors didn't know if he would survive the night, and I knew he needed to hear that song at least once before he left. But I choked on the tears, and Chris just held me.

At two in the morning, I called my home teachers (church men). They arrived at the hospital, dressed in suits and ties, and gave a blessing to my little baby, touching his heel-- the only part of his body they could get access to with all the bubbles and tubes around him.

I went back to my room, where everything was exactly the way I left it. Balloons. Flowers. And a blue teddybear that was the exact same size of my baby. I held that bear in the crook my arm, and cried.


......

8 days is a long time.
8 days were the hardest 8 days I had ever had to endure up to that moment.
But, in the blessing, I was assured that he would grow to be a great man.
8 days after being born, my baby boy, Bear, came home. And although he wasn't healthy, and it took many months of nearly daily visits to doctors and clinics, today, he's out with his cousin, riding bikes with popcans on the wheels, making dirtpiles for their trucks, and eating whatever they find in the kitchen.


This is his 7th birthday and 8 days later. I am sooooooo glad that I have him still.

Bear is so incredibly sensitive. He's sweet, and goofy, and even sometimes a little 'slow'.. in a cute, shake-your-head kind of way. And I love him. He has had more near-death experiences than I would ever wish a mother would experience, but he always comes back to me.

He's healthy. He's cute. He's into cars and tractors and skateboards and lego.

And I am soooo lucky to sing him one of our lullabies every night, to cut his strawberry-blonde, fuzzy hair, and mostly, to be his Mother.