And so the journey begins....

Grief, it is a terrible word. You never want to go through it. I never thought that I would have to deal with it. I thought I could live my life and never be touched by it. Yes, I knew my mom, grandparents, and so forth would pass away, but, when I started my family I never even thought of losing one of my children. A child is not supposed to die before their parents. They are supposed to bury their parents not the other way around. I never appreciated that before. I never really thought about it. I just couldn’t fathom that happening to me. Well, it did. And in this little book here you are going to learn about my child, and all that we went through in the NICU and then I am going to talk about grief also.
Having a child changes your life drastically. You are no longer a selfish being only out for yourself. Your whole being is protecting and loving that child with everything you have to see them reach adulthood to live out on their own. You have dreams for them which they will probably not accomplish as they are your dreams and goals and not theirs but, you don’t think of that. You just look at this miracle that you have created and think nothing of how some children struggle and fight to survive to take one breath at a time. I have had 5 children. The first 4 were girls. They were born with no complications. Sweet and beautiful like it should be. My 5th child was Johnathan, my sweet baby boy. He was born 15 weeks early, and from the moment he was born, he had to fight a fight I know if it was me that I wouldn’t have fought. He is still the strongest person that I have ever known. He never gave up. He was born with ASD (atrial septial defect), VSD (ventrical septial defect), premature lungs and everything else in between. He weighed in at a whopping 1 pound 15 ½ ounces. And was no bigger than a Barbie doll at 13 ¼ inches. He was born by emergency cesarean section because my placenta abrupted. I remember the first time I seen him through my narcotic induced eyes. I seen this very very tiny knee. I feel in love with that knee and I asked the Lord to please let him make it through the night so that I could see him. Johnathan didn’t have much of a chance. They gave him 24 hours. He made it. I went to see him as soon as I was able and it was very scary seeing all of these machines. And this little itty bitty baby amidst of it all. But, to me he looked just totally perfect. I seen a baby that was my son. I just couldn’t believe it. My son. I had never been able to say that before. I just kept repeating in my head. My son, My son. I have a son. From the day he was born, I gave it all to God. I knew that whatever the outcome God knew what he was doing and that it would be ok.