Today, I saw so many wonderful posts from friends regarding Mother’s Day.  Friends who have lost their moms and miss them.  Friends with funny stories about their children.  But to be quite honest, I had no idea today was Mother’s Day.

When did I realize it?  When I went to pull open the door to a breakfast place and saw a notice on how today (Mother’s Day) is their busiest day of the year.  (We were going to get breakfast anyway.  And I was NOT dressed up by any stretch of the imagination!)

Why didn’t I remember it?  Well, because I have a lot of other stuff on my mind.  Like my patients.  The children’s book I’m writing, illustrating, funding, and publishing — hopefully, on Adahlia’s birthday.  And the fact that she has a blood transfusion tomorrow.

We had a wonderful day together.  Happy.  Playful.  But seeing my friends’ posts and considering A’s blood transfusion tomorrow, I start to think about how it would have been had she not survived.

How she had nearly died at 6 weeks old, almost starved to death and a heart’s beat away from a heart attack with a Hb of 1.9 (a normal adult’s is 12.5-17), because she was too weak to nurse, and no one but me thought anything was wrong.

I remember when we came home after being in the hospital for a week, re-entering that house with her fragile body, her weight-for-height having dropped from the mid-50th to 30th percentile just in 2 weeks (since her 4-week exam), and my shattered, exhausted spirit, and taking a look around the living room:

A baby swing, empty, a swaddling blanket strewn across it.  A few stuffed toys scattered.  Books.  Sofie the Giraffe.  Baby diapers and clothes pulled from their drawers in haste as we rushed to the hospital, deviating from the doctor’s orders to go directly there immediately from his office, and the ER doctors would be waiting for us, because the same something in me that had insisted for weeks that something is wrong was now louder, now that it had been honored, and it was telling me that this wasn’t going to be a quick visit, and we’d need the frozen milk, and the breast pump, and changes of clothes… and our house was on the way to the hospital, and a 10-minute detour wouldn’t make a difference.

The drawers containing her clothes and diapers were still flung open.  Lights left on.  All week.  Waiting for us.  For her.

All of it surreal.

And it hit me:  What would have I done if I had walked back through this door without her?

Or she could have died in her sleep the day before I took her to see the pediatrician, her heart seizing from working so hard, from trying to pump and oxygenate and keep tissues alive without any blood.   

I remember looking at the giant rhododendron bushes outside the picture window and thinking of how I had seen a hummingbird there, a hummingbird that looked in the window at me, at her, and how as I held her, I could feel her own little heart fluttering so hard and fast and palpable… and inside my own heart had sank, because I knew it was wrong, and how I had tried to force a smile when I described her heart as a “little hummingbird heart” to her dad.  Wanting it to be okay.

But knowing it was wrong.

And she had nearly died.

Good God, what would have today — in 2018 — been like?  Reaching for a door handle, just an innocent breakfaster in comfy, non-fashionable workout attire, only to realize it was Mother’s Day?

Could I have EVER operated normally in the world again?  Could I have ever forgiven myself for not speaking up for her, and insisting someone see her?

Back in 2012, standing in the doorway after our hospital hell-week, what on earth would I have done had we entered that hospital with our wise-eyed infant and not returned with her?

Gone instantly insane?

I could not have looked at all her things.  I could not have packed them up.  Or given them away.

Would I have grabbed matches and burned the whole thing down?

I’m honestly not sure.

What would I do if she had a severe transfusion reaction tomorrow, and died?

I honestly don’t know.

Here’s what I do know, having spent part of the day walking next to her, laughing and catching her as she tried roller skating to the neighborhood playground, drinking tea together, and rocking on the front porch with her sitting on my lap, head against my chest:

I have been SO blessed.  I am so damn blessed and so damn lucky.

Really, my daughter is alive because a few key women reacted differently than other women.  They looked at my baby, listened to my poorly articulated concerns, and instead of smilingly “poo-poo”ing my feelings as “new mom worries” (as other women had) or suggesting I get examined for post-partum depression (as other women had), these ladies said:

“Hmmm… she looks okay.  But you’re the mom.  And if you think something’s wrong, it’s wrong.  Let me make a phone call.  I bet we can get you an appointment with the pediatrician today.”

Other women shut down my intuition.  They all but called me crazy.

Bless those three women who SAW me as I stumbled through my monologue on how “I know she looks okay now, but she didn’t a few minutes ago… something’s wrong… I just know something’s wrong…” helpless tears welling up and spilling down my face.

I am THE luckiest mother on the planet.  And I am so grateful to those women.  They were the first to save her life.  And since then, there have been countless others.

Yes, I am the luckiest mother on the planet.

And the good news, the amazing truth is:  It’s not an exclusive club.

If you have children that are still alive, that makes YOU the luckiest mother on the planet.

And if you don’t, the fact that you had time with your children, and that you know them (even if only in your womb, and they never took their first breath), the fact remains that you knew them like no one else.  They were precious to you.

And you loved them.  And love them.

No one can take that from you.  Ever.

Those of us who have loved are the luckiest mothers on the whole damn planet.

And that’s what I think Mother’s Day is really all about.