For whatever
reason, kiddo has really taken to the season of Advent. Frankly, his interest tickles me because it's
also my favorite time of year. You can
say whatever you like about the actual day of Christmas, but it's the
waiting...the wondering...that anticipation of what is yet to come that has
always interested me. I find myself more
introspective, more thoughtful, more curious and more patient during this time
of the year than any other. So it’s very
sweet to me to hear kiddo asking to participate in this liturgical season, with
the traditions we have chosen to carry into our home.
For many years,
I’ve kept an Advent wreath and calendar, going through the devotions for myself
because kiddo was too little to understand or not interested in participating;
however, that started to change last year.
During his time in our church’s worship center (for kiddos in pre-school
through 2nd grade, while the adults are still in worship), he began
to show a lot of interest in the story, the journey and the process of the
season leading up to Christmas.
When he was still
in the NICU seven years ago, we didn’t know if we’d be celebrating Christmas at
home or with him in-patient. That was a
tough pill to swallow. Halloween hadn’t
been too bad to spend in the hospital. I
mean, really -- he was only about six weeks old and wouldn’t have been
trick-or-treating anyway. But after
getting news on Thanksgiving Eve that he had developed GERD and was aspirating
my breast milk into his lungs, we started feeling bleak about his prospects of
coming home before Christmas. Yeah, I
know it’s another day on the calendar…but the thought of spending all of
Advent, Christmas AND New Year’s Eve/Day in the hospital was
almost more than we could bear.
So, to try to add
some sense of normalcy to the daily grind of being in the NICU, I looked for an
Advent calendar to put by his crib.
Hospitals have lots of rules and regulations about what can and can’t be
put in a patient’s room, and those seemed to quadruple when it came to what could
reside in the NICU. Of course we didn’t
want to bring in anything that could carry/spread germs because he was in a
nursery with six other kiddos who were also fighting for their lives; the
stakes were far too high.
Thank goodness for
my mom. She found the cutest little
wooden tree that was okayed to occupy a spot on the counter right by kiddo’s
crib. It had twenty-four hooks on it,
and sat on a pedestal with little presents around the base. Within the base, there were the same number
of drawers; each holding an ornament to hang on the tree. The best part, though, was that the tree was
battery-operated so it spun around, the star at the top blinked on and off, and
it played Christmas carols any time one of the drawers was opened.
You should have seen
kiddo’s face light up in wonder when we showed it to him. The nurses loved it, and we’d often find it
with run-down batteries because someone had left it on too long since it was
just so dang cute! The joy that little
tree spread around the NICU was fantastic, and we were glad we were able to
share that with the other families who were facing similar, long-term
challenges and the uncertainty of their length of stay.
As the days
continued to pass, I wondered when our precious kiddo would come home. I prayed that God would let us bring him home
before Christmas. And, after a necessary
surgery early in December, kiddo’s prognosis started looking brighter. He was off oxygen for a short time, and his
stats continued to improve. I was
cautious, though – I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them
squashed. I remember looking at the
calendar that day and starting to count back how many days he had been in the
NICU. I couldn’t believe it had been
ninety days. Really?! That number seemed unbelievable!
I remember praying
that night – begging God, really – saying, “Please don’t let us get to one
hundred days, God. I can’t do triple
digits. I don’t know how I’m going to
handle this. Please, please, let him
heal and come home!” After all, his due
date had been December 10th, and we had been told many NICU babies
are well enough to be released by their original due date. That wasn’t a promise, though – just a hope
that we wanted to materialize.
When I got the
call on December 11th from our primary nurse that the doctors had
determined kiddo was meeting the goals necessary for his release, and that we
should get ready to take him by the weekend, I remember saying to her, “Are you
serious?! I can’t handle it if you’re
f*cking with me!” (Side note: that nurse was worth her weight in
platinum. She knew how tough it was for
me that kiddo was still in-patient on his due date and had been of great
comfort to me throughout his stay. She
also had a wonderful sense of humor and rolled with my mood swings like a pro.) She laughed at my words and replied, “How
soon can you take the CPR, oxygen and monitor training you need? Your kiddo’s coming home!”
I quickly
scheduled our necessary trainings, called my husband to share the good news (my
parents were at my home that morning when I got the phone call) and then we all
burst into tears of joy. I couldn’t wait
to go in that day and add another ornament to our little Advent tree.
As it turned out,
kiddo was released on December 15th that year…exactly ninety-eight
days after he had entered the world.
Somehow, we managed to avoid the triple-digits milestone I’d been
dreading, and we were able to bring him home where he belonged.
Of course, that
little Christmas tree came home with us, too.
I had thought about leaving it at the hospital, but there was too much
uncertainty as to whether or not it could be used by anyone else; I hated the
thought that it could be thrown out after spreading so much joy, so it was an
easy decision to pack it up and bring it with us.
That first night
we were home, I put kiddo in his sleeper and we all sat on the sofa together as
a family. The lights from our full-sized
Christmas tree were the only things illuminating the room, and there was some
soft Christmas music playing in the background.
It was a magical moment – quiet, thoughtful, joyous, and emotional – as
I realized that I’d been given the best gift I could ever imagine. It didn’t matter to me if I never received
another present in my life – I had everything I ever wanted in that moment.
As it happened,
the ornament I hung on the tree that day was a little present. To this day, I always put that present in the
box that has the number fifteen on it as a reminder of the incredible gift we
received. Last year, kiddo asked me why
I put the present in it, and I told him the story of the day he came home from
the hospital.
Last night, when we
were getting ready to put all of the ornaments in the numbered boxes, he
remembered, “The star goes in the first one, because we top the tree to start; Santa
goes in the last one because he comes on Christmas Eve. Oh, and there’s the gift, Mom. That one goes in the one with the fifteen.” I asked him why he thought that and he said,
“Because that’s the day you brought me home from the hospital. You said I was your best gift ever.”
I had no idea he
had remembered me telling him that story.
Indeed, little one…you are the best gift. Ever!
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