Jack

On December 29, 2009, Jack was born. He is the child of my first cousin, Bryce. We are an exceptionally close family, as all the cousins grew up together and continue to celebrate birthdays, first communions, weddings, anniversaries, or any other occasion that might be cause for a get together. I still remember where I was, getting my car repaired, when I got the call from Bryce. "We have a baby boy!" Then silence. Then, "Are you working today?" Jack was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. The odds were stacked against him. A diaphragmatic hernia does not have a good prognosis. Nobody knew what was going to happen. All we could do was pray. And we did plenty of that. The fact that I just happen to be a nurse in the unit where Jack was, proved to be a great blessing, for both Jack and myself. For right before Jack was born, I was still consumed with my own grief and my own loss. But when Jack arrived, there was no place for that anymore. My focus turned to him, to help him heal. Jack was in the hospital one month. I only missed two days. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to have your child in the hospital, to not get to hold him, smell him, even touch him. I'm sure that their entire stay was somewhat of a blur. And so for Jack, and his parents, I chronicled his journey. Because I know that I would have wanted somebody to do that for my baby.