It was a normal day, Thursday afternoon, 15.1.15. You've been in my belly for 30 weeks and another day \ud83d\ude42 The day before yesterday I was at the doctor's who checked you and me and said everything was fine. I was sitting in the living room working on the computer, when suddenly I felt something flowing between my legs. I went to the bathroom and saw blood. A lot of blood. At that second I felt panic and was very worried about you.
\nI immediately called my dad, who was less scared than I was, and said I should go to the emergency room. I quickly got ready, nervous, scared, and worried that something would happen to you.
\nMy grandparents picked me up. The journey to the hospital, which took less than ten minutes, seemed like an eternity. The thought that accompanied me the whole time was, "Just hope nothing happens to you." I was worried about you.
\nWe arrived at the maternity ward, everyone around me had a much bigger belly than mine, you were still tiny in my belly. We waited for the nurse and a doctor to examine me, when we were admitted they took my blood for tests and hooked me up to a monitor.
\nI heard your heart beating. I breathed a sigh of relief. In the meantime, they performed additional tests. Nurses and doctors came in and out endlessly. I started to feel you a little less. I started to get stressed. The atmosphere around me was also tense. The nurses were not happy with the results of my tests, and at the same time, your pulse sounded less good than before.
\nI was so worried about you. I was so scared in those moments that the doctors and nurses were shouting all sorts of things over my head, while I lay connected to the monitor. It was really stressful. I wanted to feel you kick again, respond to my caresses and the song "Goliath." And then I heard them say the words "emergency surgery."
\nI think those were the scariest moments I've ever experienced in my life. I thought to myself - what surgery?!? I'm only 31 weeks pregnant! How will you survive outside of my womb?!?
\nFrom the moment I heard those two words, I didn't hear anything anymore. The doctor and the nurses tried to explain and came to sign me, my grandparents tried to calm me down. And me? I didn't hear anyone. I was worried about you. I was stressed and worried about how you would live outside of your mother's womb at 31 weeks?!? They quickly led me to the operating room. I remember that my father just came running and managed to give me a kiss at the entrance to the operating room. I was scared. I was very scared! The doctor who accompanied me from the reception, didn't leave me and tried to calm me down and explain. They moved me to a very cold metal bed and everyone was screaming around, you must have panicked when you heard the screaming. It was a frightening, stressful and anxiety-provoking sight. I was very cold, and they started to undress me and prepare me for surgery.
\nI so wanted us to go through the experience of getting to know each other in a different way. We even met with our doula, who was supposed to help us meet naturally, without unnecessary interventions. I never imagined I would meet you the way we did.
\nI wasn't conscious when they took you out of the womb because I was anesthetized, but I can guess you were very scared. Mom wasn't there to hug you. Only the doctors and all sorts of devices that helped you breathe.
\nThe next time I was awake, we were no longer together. I woke up in the recovery room, sore and tired. Dad came in to see me, and so did my grandparents. They told me you were okay. I smiled and fell asleep. The next time I woke up, I was in a different room. I asked to see you and was told that you were on a different floor and that only when I felt better and was able to sit up on my own could I get to you in a wheelchair. This all happened at night.
\nI wanted to see you so much that I practiced getting out of bed and sitting up. It seemed like an eternity. I wanted to see you so much. My baby! I tried again and again, just so they would let me get out of bed and come to you. The next day, I actually managed to sit up despite all the pain, I just wanted to be taken to you! Dad wheeled me in a wheelchair and we arrived at the "nursery." I had never been to a nursery. Dad explained the rules to me, and that you had to wash your hands at the entrance, disinfect with blue liquid, and wear a gown. I agreed to everything, just let me see my baby! I put on a gown, and while Dad was pushing me in the chair, I started seeing tiny babies in incubators.
\nAnd then\u2026 Dad stopped the chair in front of the incubator in which you lay naked, ventilated with lots of tubes and a monitor beeping above your head.
\nNo. This is definitely not how I dreamed we first met.
\nI didn't know what to do.
\nI looked at you and you looked so small, helpless and you could barely see your face because it was covered in tubes and tape. A very nice nurse explained that there was a special opening where you could put your hand in. It felt very strange that I couldn't feel you on me, hug you, or hold you. The nurse opened the incubator window and I reached out. This was the first time we had felt each other outside the womb. You felt warm and cozy. And it seemed like you enjoyed the touch too.
\nOnly after 3(!!!) days did they agree to take you out so I could hold you. It was a very complicated operation because you were connected with a lot of wires.
\nAnd so, 3 days after you were taken out of the womb, we felt each other's bodies again. It was the most exciting feeling ever! I was so excited and happy to feel you and that you felt me again.
\nOver the next 74 days, I spent most of the day in the nursery.
\nI was hospitalized two floors above you and I visited you all the time. It was hard for me to see mothers hospitalized with me bringing their babies into the room, and even harder was the day I was discharged. I saw mothers leaving the hospital with their babies, and I left empty-handed.
\nThe hardest moment of every day was leaving you at the hospital and coming home. It happened every night! I waited all night for morning to come so I could meet you again.
\nDuring your hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit, you grew and learned to breathe on your own and eat without a feeding tube.
\nMom made friends, without whom this period would have been much harder. We still meet them and your friends from the perinatal period and we will probably continue to do so even when you are older.
\nThat period in the nursery was accompanied by a lot of crying, excitement, learning, getting to know each other, patience, moments of happiness, and most of all, a lot of love.
\nMy Golan, you are the champion of champions!!! My hero!<\/p>\n
Have a nice day,
\nMoran Witkowski-Reese, MA
\nEarly Childhood Educational Consultant<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a normal day, Thursday afternoon, 15.1.15. You've been in my belly for 30 weeks and another day \ud83d\ude42 The day before yesterday I was at the doctor's who checked you and me and said everything was fine. I was sitting in the living room working on the computer, when suddenly I felt something flowing between my legs. I went to the bathroom and saw blood. A lot of blood. At that second I felt panic and was very worried about you. [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pagim.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}