Even though Jack is four and a half years old, this is my fifth Mothers Day. My first was spent in the hospital when I went into labor 14 weeks early. I sat in a hospital bed with a fetal heart monitor strapped to my belly as they fed me intravenous drugs that made my contractions stop, but every muscle in my body shake like a crack addict going through withdrawal. I tried desperately for the next few days to keep Jack inside me. Every three days inside was a huge developmental milestone for him.
On that Sunday morning an older woman entered my room and game me a corsage. I looked at her confused and asked her what the flower was for. She explained to me that even though I was in the Anti-partum wing, I was still a Mommy this sunny Sunday morning, and that the hospital was honoring all Mommies with these corsages. She pinned it on my fugly hospital gown and whistled her way down the hallway.
I cried when she left the room. The day before I had to tell the doctors and midwifes that I wanted Jack circumcised, I planned to breastfeed, and had to face the very true reality that he may be born ridiculously premature….To my incredibly immature 23 year old brain, Jack was not a reality, not just yet……
and somehow, all of these profoundly important choices I was verbalizing, although they were heavy and somewhat immediate, were still not real to me.
Something about that flower on my hospital johnny was though……
Mellissa Hughes - Soprano 