You decide to bring a child into the world alone, you decide to dedicate your whole being to something that has not yet been created, you look at the little toddlers running after their mothers and promise yourself that next year you will have one too.

The tears flow… and you know that soon you will be part of this circle called “motherhood.” Treatment after treatment, disappointment following disappointment… The months pass, the days are counted, the hours are nerve-wracking… and another negative answer, and another forced smile on the doctor’s face… You look at yourself, look around, and slowly… your hopes fade.

You wake up in the morning to the phone ringing… it drops from your hands! You're sure you're dreaming… you pinch yourself, wipe away your tears and can't believe you just found out you're pregnant!

The days pass, the weeks are counted, the pregnancy is normal.. You can't stand anything and welcome every nausea, every movement, every kick. The names are running through your head, you're already planning the room, planning the birth, the wedding, the first year... Stories are running through your mind and the countdown has begun.

You wake up in the morning, you experience an unclear pain, water is dripping from you and you refuse to believe it's real! You go to the hospital, repeat the number over and over again... and you don't believe that you can give birth at 29 weeks.

The doctors talk to you, you replay images in your head again, you tell yourself it's a bad movie, a nightmare, you pinch yourself and believe that the medicine will keep him in your stomach until week 40, because that's what they promised you!

You wake up in the hospital early in the morning, you discover that entire gallons are being washed out, you can't believe your eyes and the bleeding is relentless.

You are led to the delivery room, you don't have time to get an epidural and slowly... everything stops, everything spins around you, speech becomes slow, images become blurry, you can barely breathe properly and only a small, sobbing cry is heard in the background... You can't believe that at this moment you have become a mother, you dream of them putting it on you but you watch the doctors rushing after him for a while.

And from here… nothing revolves around you anymore, it's no longer you and you and you! It's now him!

Lying barely a kilo of sugar, inside an incubator… the warm steam caresses his skin, the touch with him is so delicate that you're afraid he'll break.

Tears flow, fears increase, and the sights are etched deeply in memory.

There is no certainty whether a baby will come out of here, nothing is certain anymore…

You hear another cry in the background from a mother who has lost her beloved, the beeping of the devices deafens your ears, the phone doesn't stop ringing... and your only wish is to get out of there already... to hold him in your arms without wires, without devices... to see his leg smooth and without punctures, not to ask for permission every minute to pick him up... because hey!! It's your son... someone here is a little confused.

Whisper in his ear that you will never leave him, wipe away every tear, count another kilogram, cut off another cord, say goodbye to the incubator, wean him off the tube… hear his sucking on the bottle, fight to shorten the stay, pump more milk, count the portions… and receive the news that tomorrow you will be home.

It's not you anymore and it's not about you anymore... it's him... and your whole world is just him!

A little boy of a mother who wanted so badly to go out into the world.

Shalio was born on January 15, 2013 in Tel Hashomer after a quick and painless birth.

A short cry echoed in the room and in less than half a minute he was rushed into an incubator for intensive care.

I spent the first few hours with my finger on the pulse: "Get to know me, this is your home for at least the next six weeks," was how the nurse began her remarks. The room began to spin, the beeping became deafening, and the massive cluster of questions that had been on the tip of my tongue was shattered by the shock.

Day after day, I held his hand, wiped away tears, sang in falsetto that only a mother and son can endure, and hugged him close to my heart... so that he could hear my heartbeat and feel the warmth of my body.

Step by step we climbed, another sissy in the meal, another kilogram in weight, another thread dropped and snapped.

So we walked towards the room of the elders, the room of the rewards, the room from which the door opened and the direction was only to the exit.

02/28/13 You wore real baby clothes for the first time and at the weight of a true hero, about 2,200 kilos, I placed you in a stroller and assured you that from now on it was a one-way ticket only!

Happiness was mixed with fears, there is no longer supervision, but there is a huge mother's heart and two eyes that hunt for your gaze at every opportunity.

Quail is almost six months old today, smiling and laughing out loud, rolling over and kicking with lots of energy. Sip from the bottle with tremendous strength and savor the taste of life at its own pace.

I was blessed with an angel, a true hero.

And if you ask me…

I wouldn't change his early arrival into the world for a single day,

They gave me more time to enjoy it.

A mother's life