Learning to be Momma to this one

I had been officially licensed for one month when I walked into the hospital room with an empty car seat.  I had no idea what I would find.  I had talked with his placement worker the night before over a fuzzy connection as I stood in the middle of the woods at Cub Scout camp.  We talked for maybe ten minutes.  She answered any question she could, but the truth is she didn't know too much.  Even so I said I'd pick him up the next morning, just after a pit stop at home for a shower.

I stopped just in front of his room.  The door was open just a crack with the lights off on the other side.  I looked up and down the hallway expecting somebody to greet me, but there was nobody around.  Taking a deep breath I slowly pushed open his door and walked through.  He was to my right swaddled and sleeping.  He was the tiniest baby I had ever met.  To my left was his health board saying he needed to be left in his crib to sleep leaving me to sit in the rocking chair quietly beside him.  After a few minutes but what felt like hours a curly haired, smiling nurse introduced herself and told me I could pick him up.  It was six hours of learning how to care for him before she sent us home.

The blanket he came home from the hospital with.

Three weeks later I found myself in the same hospital with two big boys and very sick baby boy.  He had been throwing up for the last 24 hours.  The weight he had lost proved my instincts were right, nothing was staying down.  After an X-ray and a ultrasound it was agreed that the hospital would be our home for the next few days.  Strong man picked up the big ones and I made up my bed on a cot.  The waiting, worrying, and fighting of a Momma began.

Trying to read a book while I waited to meet with the doctors.

The waiting...
... Test still being done at 11 pm Friday night.
... Pacing our room while I waited for them to come back from putting his IV in.
... For morning to come while I held him each time he vomited so I could talk with the doctors.

More tests

The worrying...
... As his throwing up became so scheduled and regular I could catch it saving him a change of clothes.
... As the surgeon never came to see us simply looking over his charts, making choices I disagreed with.
... Sitting in the waiting room while he was finally in surgery.

Going to surgery

The fighting...
... With doctors to move his surgery up a few days.

My boys were birthed to me whatever comes our way is all part of parenthood.  This boy is different.  This time I went to classes and made my house ready for inspections.  For this boy I got a phone call asking if I was willing to take him as my own for a few months.  I chose him and everything that comes with him.  It may only be for a time that I get to be his Momma because he could go home with a single phone call, but after this weekend I have no doubt that there is no end to the depths of love I have for this guy.

We love, because He first loved us.

~ John, friend of Jesus