My Arms Were Full...Finally
Nathan was over three weeks old when I was finally able to hold him for the first time. I had no way to go to the hospital except when my mother took me. When I did get there, I would only look longingly at him through several layers of glass. Years later, with yet another child in an incubator, they let me scrub and reach my gloved hand into the holes to touch her. This time, no courtesy like that was permitted. Then the day came when he was no longer in the NICU. His tubes removed. He could suck. He still had no eyebrows but fingernails were forming. At church people were reconsidering whether my story of his premature birth was true. He finally weighed five pounds. I asked about my child. An older nurse working the regular nursery was sitting in a rocking chair, holding him, giving him a bottle. I had thought about breast-feeding. I knew no one that breastfed. It just seemed natural to me. I didn’t know then how much better it is for the new infant. I just thought I’d li...