birth

Today, my baby boy turns seven.

Seven!

Seven years.

Wow. I swear Bunz was just a baby, like a minute ago.

Random little things bring me back to the day he was born. The smell of medical adhesive tape. Extra-crisp apples. The traffic light at the corner of Cooks Lane and Edmonson.

The morning Bunz was born, my husband and I stepped through a doorway into a new world. We didn’t realize it immediately, but over time it became apparent that a profound change had taken place. As Bunz grew from an infant to a toddler to a child, my husband and I grew into new versions of ourselves. Kind of like those born-again Christians, but without the religion. Just regular born-again people.

The transformation looked a little like this:

Before

Before we had kids, we had a cat named Kitty Little. For the first 7 years of our married life, she was our baby. One morning I dropped her off at the vet, planning to pick her up that evening. Except! The vet called me around lunchtime to say that Kitty Little’s blood glucose level was a little off and she might have diabetes. Diabetes! I hung up in tears and left right away, jogging home to grab my car so that I could collect my sick kitty. How awful! Diabetes?! What could be worse??

During

The days and months after Bunz’ birth were kind of like the “during” phase. Bunz started having seizures a few hours after birth, and the long list of things that could possibly be wrong with him included viral infection, bacterial infection, lung injury, bleeding in his brain, stroke, hepatitis, genetic or metabolic abnormalities and some other things I can’t recall. He had two spinal taps and his IVs were loaded up with medications for every possible issue, until one by one those issues were ruled out and a brain MRI suggested he’d had a stroke.

During these first few days, I refused to stay in my hospital bed and kept trotting off to visit him. I had no patience for wheelchairs or rest and, as a result, ended up with a nurse of my very own. When my nurse asked what she could do for me, I very bluntly informed her that the only thing anyone could do was to make my baby ok. She couldn’t do that, and anyway Bunz had to transfer to a children’s hospital, so we left. As we drove behind Bunz’ fancy NICU-on-wheels to the new hospital, I realized for the first time that my belly was empty and so were my arms.

Ah… the “during” period was rough. So much anger, guilt, fear, shame, regret. How I wished sometimes that Bunz was a cat with diabetes!

After

But over the years, we’ve gradually entered an “after” period. Not in the sense that the hard stuff is over — there are still days dominated by fear, anger and frustration. There are still things to worry about, things to struggle with, things to fight for, things that are unfair. It’s not fair that Bunz has a standing request to wear headphones the next time he rides in an ambulance or that his younger brother, at age 5, already knows how to wait first for the fireman to come to the door, then the paramedic. It’s not fair that life is complicated for them.

But the “after” period is all about realizing that life in general is not fair, and that’s OK. Because that’s How It Is. Life is unfair in so many ways for so many people, and this just happens to be our own personal brand of unfairness. In our growing, our transformation, we’ve glimpsed a rawness to life that’s often overlooked when everything is safe and warm and okay. At first the rawness seemed tragic. But over time we’ve come to realize that the rawness is amazing and beautiful because it clarifies what’s truly important in life – not competence, not speed, not winning, not being right all the time or even being seen. What’s important is experiencing, surviving, loving. Before Bunz, my husband and I thought we knew love. We thought we understood what it meant to trust. Turns out, we had no idea.

In the past seven years, we’ve felt like the most powerful versions of ourselves and the most powerless.

We can do nothing.

We can do anything.

He’s taught us so much.

Anyway.

All of this is to say that today is Bunz’ seventh birthday and he could care less about how he’s inspired and transformed his family because there’s cake! And presents! He can hardly wait!

Cake So without further delay,