Hand to Hold's official blog
I used to love the holidays. The sparkle of white lights, the smell of evergreen, the sound of Bing Crosby Christmas carols. And then I spent a Christmas in our home, while our baby lay in an incubator in a hospital an hour away. That year, the arrival of Christmas highlighted just how “not normal” [...]
This is still the hardest part of the story to tell. The story of my girl born way-too-soon, weighing way-too-little. Because this is the point in the story where we let our guard down. Where we actually let ourselves believe that our girl’s prematurity was behind her; that we were in the clear.
She arrived by emergency c-section at 25 weeks. I saw her for the first time several hours later blanketed in a tangle of tubes and wires inside a plastic box. There were no tender moments. There was no mind speak between us. Just the voice in my head screaming, Run! There was no baby on my chest. Just an industrial powered machine delivered to my bedside with the instructions, Put a suction cup over each breast and let the machine pull out the milk. Or not. The machine could not do the work of my baby. My mind and body refused to cooperate, to let go, to let down. [Read more]
Hand to Hold is a nonprofit 501(c)3 parent support organization and information and resources provided here do not intend to take the place of the relationship between a patient and personal physician.