We’ll be posting a handful of the many amazing entries from the contest here, over the next few days. Thanks so much to everyone who wrote one; it’s been a pretty intense journey reading these.
Seems appropriate to begin with the winner of the drawing…
C. Weill
Lafayette, LouisianaTo Whom It May Concern,
My Daughter was born via emergency C-section thirty one days before her due date. She spent the first ten days of her life in the NICU. I worked for the Woman’s Hospital at the time. I wrote grants for the NICU and other departments. I knew, I KNEW, my child was not in mortal danger. But it didn’t feel that way.
The NICU is a wonderful place. It literally saves the lives of babies who would have died less than a generation ago. The NICU is horrible place. If a nursery is supposed to be a bright, fun place filled with love and learning and joy, then the NICU is the opposite of that. There are no windows because the temperature must be precisely controlled at all times. It is a dim place because premature babies are very sensitive to light. It is a quiet place but a place filled with random and disturbing alarms and odd round tones. Mostly it is just unnatural and sterile. And sad.
Moms, in certain cases, are allowed to nurse, but Dads—not so much. On the third day of her life, they inserted a tube into my daughter’s throat. It helped her breathe. It delivered Serfactin, a miracle drug. It prevented her from vocalizing in any way. It saved her life, but it cut off all physical contact between me and her.
I couldn’t be with her the way she deserved. I have a son, he needed me while his mom was in the hospital. I have a wife, who was recovering from surgery. They needed me and I couldn’t be with my daughter. She was alone. All alone in that nightmare place. And I couldn’t be there. But you were there.
I burned her a CD. Anna Rose, Shine, Soon Love Soon, Harbor, and Lullabye for a Stormy Night. And there was an optional track, Burning Love, the Elvis version, for a little pep in the morning. So I was absent, pulled away by responsibility and you were there. Quietly insistent. Determined and perfect. You and Elvis.
When she was nine days old, three days ahead of schedule, my daughter pulled out her own breathing tube. She scratched her vocal folds and brush-burned her entire throat. It must have been so painful. But it was a moment of defiant triumph. It was her first statement to the world: I do not belong here. Take me home. It was her first moment to shine, to hold the life given to her.
She came home twelve hours later.