Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Memories. So few, but so special.
Thank you for giving me my baby...
a baby I wasn't too sure
about in the beginning.
You kept telling me
how special he was,
until I began to believe it.
You helped me see the baby
instead of the machines, the wires, and the future.

Thank you for the time,
late at night, when I came into the NICU to hold him -
looking at him in his little glass bed -
all of a sudden, I couldn't.
I left him, with the tears running down my face -
he couldn't be mine,
there's been a mistake.
Back in my room,
crying, shocked and repulsed by my feelings,
"What kind of mother am I?"
But then, two nurses brought him in to me,
into MY room, the way it was supposed to be.

Thank you for seeing
what I needed so very badly.
It was the first inkling I had,
that maybe, just maybe,
by bringing him into my room,
instead of the NICU, 
with it's spacecraft noises,
he wasn't quite so different after all.
Into my room, with privacy,
not inspected, noted, evaluated,
informed of complications,
watching me to see
how I was "holding up"...
it meant a lot to me.
It remains in my mind
as the first time I felt like his mom.

Then at discharge time,
the report reads:
"Mother overwhelmed with her responsibilities".
All of a sudden I wasn't so sure
I wanted him to be mine after all.
But you cheered me on,
and told me to take care of
"MY Very Special Baby".

Thank you for loving him until I could.