My Blessing

Warning: This could get sentimental.

My friend wrote today about not being good with sick kids. Which I think is so funny since she is a nurse and one of the first people I call with medical questions. Do you know how many times I wished for the sake of my children that I had a nursing degree? She's probably right, there's a good chance I'd be even more insane with worry than I already am. Anyway, yesterday morning she almost received one of my desperate phone calls at 5:00 a.m. Lucky for her, my mother (also a nurse) finally picked up the phone on the fifth ring.

My 19 month old was the reason for the frantic phone calling. He woke up coughing. Not just regular coughing. Barking, intense coughing - the kind of coughing where you suck in air but your body just can't quite figure out how to get it all back out again, so your half gagging, half coughing, and half not breathing at all. That's what he was doing. That, I discovered, is not pretty in a one year old.

I panicked. I ran from his room to my room, flipped on the light and told my groggy husband, "You have to help me." I, of course, handed our son to him as quickly as I could so he could fix the problem. I was dressed and had my contacts in in 2.3 seconds and decided to call mom to see if she thought we could make it to the hospital where his doctor is (and where she works) 20 minutes away or if we needed to take him in the local very small hospital in town. She advised a breathing treatment before we rushed out of the house. She, of course, came to our house to see how bad he was, probably because she knew I was in panic mode. She was right, the treatment did the trick and held him over 4 hours until we went in to see the doctor for $25 instead of $300.

So, the diagnosis was croup and the result is lots of steroids and very little sleep.

That was a long introduction for why I actually started writing this post. The 5:00 a.m. "are you going to die in my arms" feeling has had some effect on me, mostly in the way of making me look back over his short life and count my blessings. Here are a few.

• He is my baby of promise. After literally feeling like God told me I would have a baby by the end of the year and then miscarrying yet another child, being called on Christmas Eve to let us know we'd been chosen to adopt a baby boy was an amazing Christmas miracle.


• His dark eyes make my heart melt, just like I'm sure they will do to some precious girl someday.


• His smile and laugh are contagious. They brighten my day, even when he's being naughty.


• He cracks me up all the time. When he wakes up in the morning or from his nap, one of his first words is always "pop sicle." Just like that, with a big pause in the middle. Because we feed him popsicles at every meal??


• I love the way he repeats the last two words of everything he hears. I call him a Polly Parrot. He says he's a Polly Carrot.


• He adores his big brother, even though big brother doesn't often deserve adoration.


• I couldn't love him anymore if he were my own flesh and blood. I feel completely blessed to be able to honestly say that. I can't comprehend the intracacies of human love and emotion, but Somebody knew what They were doing.