Oblivion

Well, my sister had her baby, so Grandma and I went to see the lil bundle of joy. And while I noticed how precious he was and his head full of hair, I noticed something more. He was a newborn. I totally missed the newborn state for Mason. And this led me to another realization. My baby was a preemie! Of course I realized it when he was born at thirty weeks, but seeing Karson really put it into perspective. Mason was tiny. He had tubes galore hooked up to him. He could not breathe on his own. His heart had an open valve, a hole essentially. His blood count was closely monitored because his "crit count" was low. They were even talking blood transfusion. Yet, I was oblivious. I knew that he was a preemie, but I just saw him as a small baby. The severity never really crossed my mind. He had a long road ahead of him just to get out of the hospital. And preemies are not out of the clear just because they gain weight and go home. His development is more aligned with a newborn than a nearly four month old. This will be the case for a while. But when I look at him I see my baby. However, when we go to the mall I get "Ohhh he's so small". Small?! My baby ain't small! He has tripled his weight. He's a big boy. That's what I think, but really...he is small. He's the same size as my five day old nephew. He spent fifty days in the hospital. We could only hold him for short periods of time because he needed to be in his isolete to help regulate his body temperature. Our little man (what Pat calls him) has come a long way. I just didn't realize he had so many odds against him when he graced us with his early presence. We knew he was gonna be alright, which he was. So being oblivious was not bad in this situation. I'm really glad that he was oblivious to his prematurity, too.