The first time I saw this quote, I was walking in to the NICU at Egleston to see Finley for the second time. He was 3 days old. I thought little of the quote, just something that was an inspirational quote for an area of the hospital that was quiet and oddly calm--considering the patients that were dealt with.
Finley was in an area of the NICU called "ECMO Bay". Unbeknownst to me, this was the area for children that were REALLY sick. I knew ECMO was heart-lung bypass for infants, but I didn't know it was a "last resort" for them. I'm thankful for that ignorance.
The first time I saw Finley, there were two other little boys on either side of him, Aiden and Braxton. Braxton was born with Group B strep and was not expected to live (I learned this from his grandmother, not due to any impropriety on the part of the staff). I knew nothing about Aiden, just that he looked terribly small compared to Finley.
...One thing that you have to understand is that the NICU operates on what we called "NICU Time". Our lives revolved around visiting hours, "rounds" and surgeries (where we had to wait in the lobby for hours at a time). All of the mothers lined up outside the lactation room, waiting to pump breast milk for children who were too weak/incapacitated to nurse, and we would all talk about the various surgeries our children were having. We would "joke" about the odds our children had for survival--all of us striving to find some way to cope with what was happening. It was its own little world and, although we rarely knew each other's names, we had a kinship that has burned their faces into my memory forever....
The next day, I saw the quote at the entrance to the NICU. It was a sign that they placed over the speaker where you requested entrance to the unit. Braxton was still on Finley's left, but the space on the right was empty. I assumed(/chose to believe--in my highly hormonal state--) that Aiden was fine and had been released from the NICU. I asked the nurses and all they could say was that it violated patient confidentiality to tell us. Later that day, Gavin told me that the sign meant that a baby had died in the unit. Upon hearing that, I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest...perhaps because I'm a mother and couldn't bear the loss of my children, perhaps because I know that the sign could easily have been posted for my own child.
It wasn't the last time I saw that sign and it broke my heart each time I saw it. I treasured that my own child was able to remain a caterpillar in my care, but I cried for the parents that knew the sign was for their own little butterfly.
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