Post #124 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Memoir Writing Contest Winner Announced
Women’s Memoirs presents the next of our award-winning contest entries for our May Memoir Writing Contest. Jenna Gensic story receives an Honorable Mention – in our Memoir Writing Contest — MOTHER’S DAY category.
Congratulations Jenna. I’m sure your story will touch the hearts of all our readers.
WHAT WE DO
Jenna Gensic
My first Mother’s Day was spent at my son’s hospital bedside. As were the sixty-seven days before it. Born three months early at 1 lb. 12 oz., Mikan wasn’t ready to sustain life outside the womb. He lived in a clear plastic case surrounded by a labyrinth of tubes and wires that would thwart Theseus. IVs and cardio leads tangled around his bony limbs like restraints and tape covered his lips, holding a ventilator tube in place down his throat.
On May 11, 2008, the March of Dimes provided gift bags and floral arrangements for the mothers with babies in the Neonatal Intensive-Care Unit (NICU). I politely accepted the flowers, knowing they would receive a quick death as soon as I brought them home to be ignored. My husband and I were living in the Ronald McDonald House at the hospital where our son was born. He was so fragile we were scared to leave. I felt my presence was a lifeline for him, and it might snap if I left. I knew my touch, my voice, and my presence could only help Mikan, so I ate, slept, and did laundry down the hall from the NICU.
I avoided the emptiness of our house. It didn’t seem right to return home without a baby. Everything was too quiet. I’d imagined the life Mikan would bring to his nursery after his birth. And even though I’d never known a reality outside of the neat, quiet, pre-Mikan nursery, with his birth, I’d expected the green walls to be more vibrant. But Mikan was missing. So I avoided my own bathroom, bed, and TV in favor of living out of a suitcase. This would last for months beyond my first Mother’s Day.
My Mother’s Day gift from Mikan was an uneventful day at the hospital. No apnea episodes, worrisome blood draws or blood transfusions. He gave me the gift of stability. My blog entry for the day mentions how Mikan enjoyed my husband humming the Indiana Jones theme song to him. This was a beautiful hiatus before learning he would need two more surgeries in the next couple weeks–laser eye surgery to prevent his detaching retinas from causing blindness, and a tracheostomy to help him breathe through a hole in his neck.
These were steep drops in the roller coaster of NICU life. I’ll always think of my first Mother’s Day as a naïve contentment before the inevitable whirlwind. He’d already had surgery on his heart and groin. His lungs were weak, and he still required a ventilator to breathe for him. He was making little progress, and we were uncertain of the host of disabilities he would face or if he would ever see the Robin Hood Green walls of his nursery. We lived one day at a time, reveling in small victories of a day without blood draws or needing to be resuscitated.
This was much different from how I remembered spending the holiday with my own mom. Initially I felt sorry for myself. I didn’t sleep in while someone served me breakfast in bed. I was stuck in a hospital, unable to nurture the lightly sweet fragrance of my first Mother’s Day bouquet. But this day didn’t seem odd or unnatural. I held my son and aided in administering a breast milk feeding through a tube in his tiny nose. Then I read Greek myths to him, and my husband hummed the Indiana Jones theme song.
I spent my first Mother’s Day doing what every other mom does on that day: mothering. It’s a job we never vacation from, and it’s the most natural one ever. What’s more normal than loving our children and giving them what they need? I stayed by my son’s hospital crib for six months, until he was healthy enough to heal at home. I didn’t have the option to warm up to the role. Motherhood grabbed and immersed me with learning curves, demanding emotional toughness.
Just like it does everyone else.
