Meeting My Son

Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida is a city of its own. A massive, daunting, overwhelming city. After parking in the garage, we somehow found our way to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit where we had to wait outside the doors to be given permission to enter. 

I stood there looking at the closed doors, knowing my son was behind them. I hadn't held him since they had placed him on my chest right after birth. I could hardly breathe, not knowing what I would find on the other side.

Finally, a nurse came out and introduced herself. She then proceeded to update us on Derek's condition and explained to us exactly what we would see when we went inside. The situation here was a completely different story than in Hollywood. This nurse was compassionate; she explained things in terms we could understand and took into consideration that we were parents, not medical students or physicians. And she wanted the shock factor to be kept to a minimum. She then told us to let her know when we were ready, and after scrubbing at the sink outside the door and putting hospital gowns on, we all proceeded through the doors. And into a scene from hell. At least to me it was.

Inside the huge room were incubators. And machines. And lots of beeping noises from all the monitoring equipment. And babies. And nurses and doctors. And babies.

It didn't matter how much the nurse tried to abate my shock. It still hit me. Hard. She had taken us over to where Derek was, and as I looked down at him, all I could think was “that can't be my son!” I broke out in sobs and felt my heart was actually breaking into pieces. My little baby was laying there with so many tubes and monitors on him, alone, and not in his mother's arms where he should be. He should be at home, being held, loved and comforted by his parents when he cried. Instead he was in a cold hospital unit, being poked and prodded and even being surgically cut open. My first look at the colostomy made me just want to scream.

I remember the nurse coming over and putting her arms around me as she hugged me. Then she said, “Do you want to hold him?” Oh my gosh! I did, but I was petrified. She encouraged me that it would be ok, that he wouldn't break, and that he needed to feel my arms around him. She also said I should try to feed him, as I had planned on breastfeeding. She pulled over a rocking chair and picked him up and placed him into my arms. Finally, I was holding my son. Now that I had him in my arms, I didn't think I could let him go again. Little did I know, this is the only way I would be able to hold him for three long weeks. It would take this long for the doctors to figure out, to the best of their abilities, just exactly what was going on in his little body.