Is it really necessary for parents to throw birthday parties for their children every year? I’d say yes as a parent of a child who was born premature. It is a reminder of how far my child has come since being born prematurely. Premature birth can be a very difficult and stressful experience for both the mother and the baby, and celebrating their birthday is a way to acknowledge the strength and resilience of both. It is also a way to celebrate the milestones that the child has achieved, such as reaching certain developmental stages or overcoming health challenges. For mothers of premature babies, every birthday is a special occasion that represents hope, love, and gratitude for their child’s life.
Here’s my daughter’s story.
We often look back on the day our lives changed, and it is hard to recall how we did it. While most mums went home with their bundles of joy, I went home with the biggest test of my life. My faith hanging by a thread. Without question, without hesitation, without pausing, there was no time to rest. Something fragile and yet so loved, she took over both our lives. We learnt medical terms and we read monitors while others read bedtime stories and lullabies. We learnt to listen to ventilators coding instead of our sweet baby’s soft cries. While most mothers dreaded all the vaccines, colic’s or baby’s first fever – we dreaded that one of those fittle breaths our child took would be her last. We shared our baby with her nurses instead of friends and family. We prayed like it was the last thing to do. Because it was the last thing to do. We watched the days pass as we watched our child grow in a fake womb, for we had to leave her when the day ended. We tried daily to make the best of the situation while in our minds we were screaming, there is nothing normal about this!
We prayed a lot and cried a lot – well, I did cry a lot. I never thought so much equipment would ever be hooked up to such a small child. I was told, “Babes, stop crying too much, we don’t want God to think that we doubt Him, for He promised that He’ll answer all prayers and we dare not go through this without Him”. One day I just started noticing her fragility seeming to be coming to an end, she was growing! Those 30g, 10g, 5g she gained every other day were now making sense! We celebrated every weight gain with ice cream. The nurses had become family. The other day I held her for the first time ever! It was literally a kiss from the heavens – that is how I felt. I was now allowed to feed her, even noticed a little smile while on kangaroo care. Cpap was no longer needed, the monitors no longer rang. She had decided in her own time that she was done with the NNU stay! And determination was with her the rest of her way! Yes, the months were long and weary, emotions were so out of hand. A feeling I never imagined. One no one will ever understand unless they went through it. My special journey. My experience. My child and I both healed and accepted that God chose us for this miracle, and we know that God is real, we felt His presence. He touched us.