In August of last year, I had a baby.
MaKai is almost a year and a half now and these past six-ish months have flown by, as we parents say–cringe! The first half of his life, however, seemed to drag on at a painfully slow pace. Life in the NICU meant daily rounds with specialists and their efforts to “clear” whatever body system they were working with. This quickly melded into my postpartum blur while Adam took the lead with docs from genetics, ENT, cardiology, radiology, plastics, neurology, ophthalmology, and gastroenterology.
The first few nights after I delivered MaKai, our alarm went off every two hours. Adam and I silently made the trek outside the ward and down the hall, into and out of an elevator then down another hall, and through two sets of double doors where we were met by a hand washing station and security measures, before being buzzed inside to feed our baby. The walk itself was maybe only a couple hundred yards, but it quickly became a tiring, sterile routine, and I had just given birth. Though I did prefer this to the nights that followed, where that same alarm went off but I instead sat in my own bed pumping and looking at photos of MaKai in the NICU, where he still was.
Daytime hours were spent in one of the three NICUs he’d stay at during those fifteen days. Fifteen days, that normally seems to pass in the blink of an eye. We were amidst other silent parents in their cubicles, avoiding eye contact, and drowning out the consistent beeping of monitors and intermittent cries of stranger’s babies.
Awkward eye contact was had with parents whose babies were much sicker, and much younger, than ours. Age was still calculated in gestational weeks at this NICU, but our little man had been full term. It was here that we were in a large room with only one other baby and family, sharing a nurse. “Roommates,” we referred to the other family as amongst ourselves (before this we had our own room and as MaKai became healthier, our number of roommates grew). This roommate had been born around twenty-three weeks and lay in an enclosed incubator, 24-7. “Do we offer to get them something when we head down to the cafe?” we’d ask each other.
September 2022
Once released, MaKai took his first breath of fresh air, and fluorescent lights were replaced with sunshine. We left the hospital and drove straight to the ocean, where we dipped his toes into the Pacific for a San Diego baptism.
MaKai was put under general anesthesia twice in his infancy for two surgeries and though we had family flying in to support us, the general lack of familial presence within a 2,000-mile radius in our day-to-day weighed heavy on me. It was all compounded by my cumbersome postpartum anxiety and depression which was living rent-free in our home. It hovered at my heels through every doorway, cast negative shadows on otherwise well-intentioned encounters, and fiercely ridiculed my parental decisions.
For a baby that didn’t come out breathing, he’s sure made up for lost time. For being misdiagnosed with a very rare condition and given a bleak, false prognosis, he sure showed those fuckers. The fragile, skinny little babe that Adam and I awkwardly fumbled to nurture in the sea of tubes and cords amidst the fluorescent lights and constant beeping of monitors has long set the precedent for tenacity and grit for our little fam. He’s gotten pretty chunky too.
I gave everything I could, even those things I swore I wouldn’t. Messages and calls went unanswered, I threw in the towel on my newly launched paid membership for my writing that had just gained traction and even a little revenue.
I sacrificed what figured I could get back for what I knew I wouldn’t. Parenting. I was learning to parent.
Coy, inquisitive expressions of his dad with the spirited and audacious nature of his mom. And just as willful as the both of us, combined—yeesh. All of a sudden, my long angsty days at home where I’d fear he would aspirate had vanished. Gone were my sleepless nights hearing his stridor and counting his breaths per minute while on the line with an on-call nurse. I quite frankly went from worrying he could die in his sleep to asking how the hell he got into my spice rack again or how he made it halfway across the room and up two stairs before I could catch him.
I am more grateful for this little demonic angel hybrid than anything else on this earth, and I love him more than anything else too. Yeah, that’s some mom shit to say, but listen, he also has the power to piss me off and hurt my heart more than anything or anyone else. And he tries—which is also some mom shit.
Everything is more challenging in my life now, shit takes so much more energy and foresight work, but it’s all more rewarding too.
He is the most important thing, but he is not everything. Quite frankly I’ve been a little disappointed in myself that during MaKai’s months of outgrowing his health issues and healing, I let it be everything.
“You guys have to put yourself first. It’s hard, and it might not sound right, but you have to.” Wise words from a friend.
Anyway, here’s our “Bubby.” Our sweet and chunky, likely certifiably insane gremlin.