Today’s guest blog is from mum Stacey Corrin, who blogs at Fives a Fellowship .
She writes about a really hard time in her life, watching her son fight for his life in intensive care. We’d like to thank Stacey for sharing this with us.
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Meeting Motherhood – Intensive Care and Helplessness
Motherhood is something you can’t fully grasp until you’ve been thrown in at the deep end. It’s not until you’re wading through, neck-deep and surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam – the full weight of all of that extra responsibility, that you begin to understand the world that you’ve just entered.
I first met motherhood in a blurry, anaesthetic induced haze. Alone and disorientated, I sat waiting to hear the first cries of my son, echo off the clinical walls. Unbeknownst to me, those cries were reverberating off of different walls to mine – the walls of an incubator that cocooned a child who had not yet met his mother.
My son was born with a congenital birth defect called ‘Oesophageal Atresia’ – a shortening of the oesophagus which made it impossible for food to travel into his stomach. Along with the inability to eat, he also couldn’t get rid of waste, due to not being born with a perforation or ‘hole’ in his bottom. What this meant for us as a family, were repeated stays on hospital wards, intensive care units and high dependency rooms. That first year is one I will never truly forget and the lasting emotion from that time, was a feeling of helplessness.
Having a child in intensive care, is like removing a vital organ and placing it just out of arms reach. That organ is a part of you – you long to care for and nurture it, yet the best that you can do, is to sit watching, waiting and wishing. Those long, heart-wrenching days of perching beside an incubator – watching on with a sense of helpless unease, tinged with an unshakeable fear of loosing something so precious, were some of the hardest days I’ve had to endure. At times I didn’t feel like a mother at all, but a failure in that I couldn’t wrap my son up, take him home and care for him as a mother should. Poking your hands through the tiny portholes of what seemed like a miniature submarine, somehow didn’t feel the same, yet those are the things that we cling to.
When faced with the prospect of giving up or fighting onwards, we instinctively choose the latter, regardless of the consequences. We fight because it is the only thing that we have the power to do. Every single one of us in that intensive care unit, were fighting our own individual battles. We diligently changed our babies nappies, wiped the sleep from their eyes and ever so gently, held their tiny little hands because it was something to hold on to, something to hold close and cherish when the lights went out and sleep struggled to set in. They were small tokens of hope, in a world that seemed alien, lonely and hopeless.
Should you ever find yourself in that position, take heart in the little things that you can do. No matter how small or insignificant they may seem, they are just as important to your little one. They are your way of saying,”I am here for you and I love you, with all my heart.”
Stacey’s son 3 years later
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You can read more about Stacey’s son and her life as a mother to twins as well as her lovely wee boy over on her blog. Or follow Stacey on Facebook or Google +.
Have you ever had a child in hospital or in intensive care? We’d love to hear your stories too.
Don’t forget that on Netmums our Parent Supporters are online to give support and advice too.
