Willie's Story
This is Willie at one week old.
He weighed 3lbs 7.25oz when he was born, ten weeks premature, on January
first 1989. He entered the world without a heart rate or respiration. Within
two hours of his birth he had a transfusion.
Willie had a number of problems right from the start.
His heart was not ready to beat on its own. We had a number of scares when
his heart would slow to a dangerous rate or stop all together. He also
had liver problems which are common to newborns but in preemies are dangerous.
He was very jaundice and we had allot of trouble getting his biliruben
levels down.
He was so little. I
was terrified of touching him, so afraid that I would hurt him. All those
wires and tubes were so overwhelming. There were more of them than there
was of him. To me, it didn't seem possible that such a tiny body could
survive. There were even tinier babies in incubators near by, but my focus
was on Willie. His three siblings had all entered the world weighing 5
to 6 pounds more than he did.
All I could think was "why
me?, why now?, why this?" I didn't touch him at first. I believed (mistakenly)
that if I didn't touch him then I wouldn't love him and I wouldn't become
attached. If he died it wouldn't hurt so much. I was wrong. Just looking
at him laying there strengthened the bond that had begun long before his
birth.
When he was five days old I held
him for the first time.
The nurses wrapped him in
three blankets to hold all the wires in and to make him big enough to hold.
I looked down into that tiny little face and thought, "My GOD, this is
my son." The battle to hold myself apart from him was over, I had lost
myself in his eyes.
Willie came home when he
was four weeks old. He had an apnea monitor and heart monitor, but he was
breathing on his own. When we weighed him just before leaving the hospital,
he was up to 4 lbs 9 oz. He was dressed in doll clothes because it was
all we could find to fit him.
But he was HOME!
This is were the hard part starts
and the reason for this site begins.
