Łukasz

you were born on january 27 - a month premature. i knew that a month early, especially these days, is not bad at all, but watching you suffer like that right from the get-go felt really shitty. they plopped you down on the scale, all naked and cold and screaming, then put you on some examining table, squirting antibiotic cream in between your puffy eyelids, repeatedly vaccuuming your nose, mouth, throat and lungs with this tube, to clear out as much fluid as possible, injecting you with all kinds of shit to help with this and that, hooking up the intravenous, cutting your heel and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing to get way too much of your very thick blood for tests. other babies get to rest a lot with their moms after they're born. not you, little guy. your mom was in the recovery room, drugged and vomiting and being pumped with other drugs that were supposed to help but only exacerbated it. finally they ran out of things to inject her with, and she stabilized.
what did it do to you, baby - being born to pain for hours, and then subsistence for weeks - almost no comfort of human contact, just machines: checking your heart-beat, your breathing, your blood oxygen saturation, keeping an elevated air pressure to your nose with extra blows of air when you're supposed to be breathing, machines dosing intravenous fluid with an added fat solution and electrolytes, and a tube taped to your little chin and going down into your tummy to make sure air bubbles come out easily. and a UV lamp on for 2 days straight to help get rid of your jaundice. people would come around every now and then, to stick an IV in a different hand, foot, thigh, both sides of your head, and all you got to show for it is a crappy mohawk and tracks and bruises everywhere.
the nurses said that you were doing pretty good for a premie, but there wasnt much to be rejoicing about. i felt fucked up, and all i did was look.
but sounds like you've been doing better and better - too bad we havent even been able to visit with you more often, but we've been sick, and we dont want to risk getting you sick. wonder if the nurses think we're shitty parents. fuck'em if they do - i think this is unfortunately the best course of action. maybe they know and understand. here at home we've all been going through a stomach flu, a cold, boogie's teething, and trying to let mommy heal from the c-section. your babcia has been helping with your sister, so that's been great. times like this you feel the value of being part of a community, a family, having someone to help you when you need it - its survival of the group, not survival of the fittest.