Evan's Birthday

January 18th, 2001-11:41 a.m. Evan entered my world and my life has never been the same. What a day that was. I was so drugged and out of it in the delivery room so I didn't think it odd that the baby wasn't crying. I couldn't even remember that we had a boy-I kept asking Mike over and over again what we had. He was born at 11:41 and I think they brought him in my room about 1 right before they took him to Children's-all I could do is look at him in the incubator. They took a Polaroid of him for me to have (I slept with it under my pillow) and then they took him away. I told Mike to go with the baby and I think my brother and sister went too. My parents stayed with me but I really have no memory beyond that other than Mike calling me at 10:30 p.m. or so crying and saying that they had to paralyze him. He was in the OR at 3 p.m. and he coded. Thank God I didn't know that until much later.

I think back and am so grateful for all the prayers that were said for Evan that day and many days after, for the support and love that people showed us. We would not have made it through if it weren't for our family and friends and those complete strangers from across the country that prayed for Evan.

I am overwhelmed with emotion each and every birthday that he has celebrated. So thankful to God for him.

Today will be a hard though as I have to go to a memorial service for a darling little boy named Jeremiah. He was born on Sept. 21st with some medical issues and over the course of the 3 months that he was in the NICU, I got to know his mom. She was single, young but so very dedicated to that little boy. They were discharged on Dec. 21st. and all was good. He went home with a feeding pump but in the grand scheme of things, not such a big deal. Anyhow, he was at the hospital Friday to have his feeding tube replaced and while he was a bit whiny Friday night, his mom said he was fine. She was up at 5 .m. on Sat. morning to turn off his feeding pump and he was smiling at her. At 7 a.m. he was gone. I can't even begin to imagine what his mom is going through. I talked with her the other day and she seemed o.k. but I can only imagine that she's just going through the motions right now. She asked me to come to the service-how could I say no. So, I will take a deep breath and enter that church and celebrate that little boy's short life and say a silent prayer of thanks for Evan.