Premature baby

She was born 5 weeks prematurely.
She was 5 lbs 15 oz (2693 gr).
She was 19,5 in (49,5 cm).

She had trouble breathing when she first entered this world.
She stayed in the NICU for eight or nine days.
She had a feeding tube up her nose while she was learning how to drink from a bottle.

She was taken care of by people I have never met.
So many strange hands held her before her own family held her.
So many strange hands and family and friends held her before her own mother got to hold her.

She was released from the hospital when she was able to hold her own temperature steady.
She came home to her distraught grandmother and her confused big brother.
Her parents were at another hospital, the mother fighting for her life and her father fighting along with her.

She was well cared for and loved and wanted for nothing.
Her grandmother became her mother.
Her other grandmother came as well.
Even her aunt flew out to help.
She is a lucky little girl.
But she was still a little girl who needed her mommy and daddy, and her big brother also needed his mommy and daddy.

Her first month of life was robbed from me, her birth was robbed from me, I was robbed from my son.

My husband had to decide her name all on his own. We had not firmly talked about names, we didn't even know the gender. I know he didn't want to name her after me because that would mean that I wouldn't make it. And I needed to make it.

All this happened, and I had no idea. I was in another world fighting for my life. I didn't consciously know it, but every single cell in my body was screaming and fighting and clawing its way towards life and health and my family.

I was put on full life support. Machines were keeping me alive. My vital signs were not stable enough to move me to another hospital. A hospital that had a machine that just might be able to save me. They wanted to airlift me to that hospital but the crew on the chopper would not accept me with those unstable vital signs, said that I would perish on the way.

Miraculously on Saturday (I was admitted on Monday) I was stable and they whisked me into the chopper and flew me to the hospital. I do not remember the flight. My husband had to drive to the hospital and when he arrived there was a team of medical experts ready to explain to him what they needed to do and what he needed to sign in order for them to do it.

To be continued...