So I joined a new club...

I am typically not a "joiner" but I did become a member of a new club this past weekend. That club would be - "Parents Who Have Had a Sick Child in the Hospital".

I have felt my heart drop at the words "Oh wow. Yeah, we're gonna have to admit him." from an ER doctor. I have held down my terrified, screaming child while nurses inserted an IV in his arm. I have spent the long night alone in a hospital room, rocking a crying, squirming baby with multiple tubes and wires connected to him, trying to keep everything from being tangled or ripped out. I have experienced the frustration of finally, finally getting him to sleep only to be woken by a nurse minutes later, to take his temperature and blood pressure. I have laid awake on an uncomfortable fold-out couch in a hospital room, thinking of all the other Mommies and Daddies who have also laid awake there, worrying about their little ones - many of them having to deal with much, much worse than the comparatively minor problems that my Bug had. I have handed my precious baby over to a nurse to be carried away from me and operated on and I have waited in a surgical waiting room, queasy with anticipation for it to be over and for all to be okay. I have experienced reaching the end of my limits and receiving help from a dear loved one just as I needed it, in my sister-in-law showing up after her 12 hour shift as an ICU nurse to rock my unconsolable baby for two hours. I have waited through those slowly ticking minutes and hours for the healing to be going along well enough to be permitted to go home...

...and I have felt the relief, the sensation of a huge weight sliding off of my shoulders, as I walked out of the hospital with my little boy in my arms.