Showing posts with label NICU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NICU. Show all posts

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Perspective

This morning, Hesperos and Mommy were talking about helicopters. Mommy shared with Hesperos the bombshell that he has, in fact, taken a flight in a helicopter. Hesperos' 4-year-old world was shaken - he had no idea he had participated in such an exciting experience. He asked when and why he was in a helicopter.



Even though Hesperos was born almost fully baked and nearly nine pounds, his lungs were a little under-developed with fluid in them that turned rapidly into pneumonia. Consequently, when Hesperos was only a day old, he was air-vac'd from his hospital of birth to another hospital in the city that had a dedicated neo-natal ICU division for care.

As any parent can imagine, it was extremely stressful - at that point, we'd never had an unhealthy newborn anywhere in our immediate or extended family and losing your newborn to an incubator for two weeks (when you already have a toddler at home) is a difficult experience, to say the least.


Hesperos, with all the joy and simplicity of a 4-year-old, laughed when he was told about his NICU experience. "Mommy," he said chuckling, "of course I had problems breathing when I was a baby. I had a very little nose!"

And with that, the memory of two weeks of parental anxiety was wiped away.