Amazing

It's certainly a week for anniversaries so apologies for all the sentiments my present and last post have bought up. So I apologise in advance if this post doesn't flow as easily as it could. Sometimes, feelings just take over and well.... read on.... see what I mean.....

A year ago today was one of the hardest days of my life.

I had a little boy who had been suffering with pain since he was more or less born.

A year ago today, I held that little boy as anaesthetic was administered before the surgeon helped me lay down my 9 week old baby onto a trolley ready for the operating theatre.

I'm crying now, recalling it.

It was the most simple of operations, one of the most successful they did at the Cambridge Specialist Childrens Department but my baby was going to go under the knife.

Those 2 hours or so (I've forgotten how long exactly) he was in the operating theatre, I was in a complete daze. I bought a magazine and a coffee in one of the eating areas of the hospital and time just seemed to stop. I wandered around the grounds but I can't tell you a single thing more than that. I can only describe it as what I would imagine to be an out of body experience. It's like it wasn't me at that hospital doing those things. Physically I was there doing that but it's nothing like what was going through my mind.

People walked past, doing their day to day routines and I was a mother with my son sleeping his way through surgery whilst his hernia was repaired.

I know it's one of the most common things ANYONE can have surgery for at any age but that is completely irrelevent until that person is YOUR child. Your baby.

We knew he'd need an operation eventually as the hernia was affecting his feeding. The first few weeks of Liams life, he was continuously stressed, continuously crying and I found it incredibly hard. It was almost a relief to discover that it was a medical condition causing his grief. It wasn't that I was being a bad mother - I already felt guilty that James and Matthew had less time with me because I had such an unhappy baby and I felt that Liams constant crying was just another signal that I wasn't coping.

I felt like I was failing all 3 of them.

Once diagnosed, we thought hard about it and asked our GP to refer us to get it fixed as soon as possible. Not long after we had to go to the emergency department because the hernia wouldn't go back into Liams groin and he was in serious pain. They wanted the hernia to go down a little before they operated. This didn't happen so 3 days after admittance he had the surgery before it got too dangerous.

I carried him down to the operating theater accompanied by our surgeon and duty nurse.

As I laid him down on the trolley and watched him be wheeled off into theatre, I broke down.

I'd been holding it together for so long, for the kids, for hubby, for the grandparents.

All those fears and stresses over the past few weeks were on the surface staring me in the face. I never did feel that I had the perfect mother baby bond with him - I honestly felt that nothing I could do could make him happy.

I'd also cry at night with frustration, feeling useless, feeling a fraud for people thinking I'd got this motherhood thing just right and found it easy but it wasn't like that this time round. It wasn't my fault, he was a baby so it couldn't be his as he knew no better but it killed me not knowing what I was doing wrong this time after the first two were fine, just what more could I possibly do for my little boy? It seemed a never ending self hatred pattern. The more time I spent on Liam, the less time with the other two.

I was then failing them. 

I was failing all my boys.

In that room, none of that mattered. My baby was in there and I couldn't do a thing for him but wait and hope all went well.

I was all alone and my baby had just been taken away from me for something that seemed so big for his tiny little body.

I vividly remember seeing his little face when he was out of surgery.

Sound asleep he looked "better" already. So peaceful. So..... not in pain.

It's so hard to describe, but sitting in recovery with him whilst he was still under anaesthetic he looked happier than I had ever seen him. I just sat there for a few minutes holding his little hand and that is when I finally began to feel that things would get better.

He ate his next meal perfectly, he was a hungry little boy.

His personality and temprement changed in an instant and cuddling my little boy with his little post op dressing back on the ward was the moment I really fell in love with little Liam.

At last I had it fixed. At last he was the baby he should have been. The baby who shouldn't have suffered those first few weeks.

We've never looked back.

Today (when the above photo was taken) Liam continues to be the happiest of my 3 boys, the cheekiest, hungriest and most demanding of my 3 little ones. Yet, I wouldn't change a single thing.

This is for you my beautiful Liam.

Lots of Love, Mummy. xxxx