Today is the anniversary of Nathan's death. He lived only 7 weeks, just 50 short days, but oh what an impact he had on my life.
My water broke at 28 weeks gestation, I was admitted to the hospital, placed in trendelenburg position....with my head of the bed tilted down. Getting reverse gravity to do it's job. I was also placed on a Magnesium drip that will make you feel like you are going crazy. Momma stayed with me in L&D over the Memorial Day weekend. Back in the "wolden days", you could not swap out, so she was it, she was my visitor and support person. After 3 days, they had to deliver because he kept having really low heart rates that took longer and longer to come back up.
In my ignorance, I just thought that he would be born early. I had no inkling that anything else would be wrong. But boy was I wrong. He had a cleft lip and palate, he had hypoplastic left heart, his esophagus did not connect to his stomach, but it did connect to his lungs, he was missing the radius bone in her arm which made him have a little angel wing of sorts. He was also born before surfactant was given for lung development, so from that respect alone he was in bad shape. We were told that he had VATER syndrome (now known as VATER Association). We were counseled that he had a very poor prognosis.
I accepted the prognosis, but never gave up hope on my sweet baby. Momma and I spend every single day at LeBonheur with Nathan. We were the parents that sat at the bedside all day every day. Since I had had a C-section and could not drive for the first few weeks, I was so blessed to have Momma and Daddy, Nancy and Amy, Mary, Jackie and other friends and family to drive me to LBCH. Those weeks were hard sometimes. As is the usual NICU roller coaster, he got sick and got better, then would get sick again.
He went home to be with Jesus on July 15, 1987. I remember momma and daddy being with me along with Warren and Sue Martin. They were great friends during this time.
The funeral and family time afterwards was kind of a blur to me. It was a 50 day habit to break of not going to sit at the hospital, so I would go sit at the cemetary. Time does help to heal those hurts and grief is a healing process. Now, at times, I feel guilty for not thinking of Nathan, but there are times that I will see a child with a special little angel wing, or hold a 29 weeker and think of my sweet baby. I cannot wait to see him in heaven.
Momma always said that Nathan ran the cloud machine, many days I will look up and see such beautiful puffy clouds and I think "Good work, son, good work".
