My Protector
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about our NICU stay and how incredibly strong our son is. Most days though I chose to not think about the real reason my son entered this world early at 28 weeks because to think about that is to think of the nights where I begged God to take him away.
When I was in my early teens, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I have been on medication ever since and have been through probably 20 years of therapy. Being a mother was not the path I wanted to take, mostly because I didn’t want my child to see me in my depression or even in my mania. Then I met Josh, my now husband, and everything changed. He married me knowing I never wanted children and never tried to convince me we needed them. At least not intentionally. But the way he loved me so purely and deeply, I wanted him to be the father of my children. Not just because he would be an amazing dad, but because with him I knew I could do it.
Before I was pregnant or even trying to conceive, Josh and I decided that I would stay on my mental health medication despite possible side effects to our unborn baby because the benefit of me being stable throughout pregnancy outweighed the risk of the slight chance of a birth defect. I was already on max dose of all four of the medications, which meant going up on them during pregnancy could be dangerous to us both.
Flash forward through the 7 long months it took to conceive our baby and I was absolutely ecstatic to see two pink lines. Morning sickness followed shortly after and stuck around my entire pregnancy. All 6 months of it.
Still, we were thrilled to hear our baby was healthy and growing. At 10 weeks, through bloodwork, we found out we were having a boy. At 12 weeks we made it Facebook official and announced that our little Liam David was due in December 2021.
Through the sickness, I tired to remain excited but if I were truly honest with myself, it mostly just sucked. I hated every minute of the throwing up and pains and random vaginal discharge. And yet still, I had no idea it was going to get so much worse.
Once I made it to the second trimester, my medications started to become less and less effective to the point I wasn’t sure they were working at all. I not only was depressed, I was suicidal. Pregnant, suicidal and blaming the growing parasite within me for the mental torture I was enduring.
Many nights I laid in bed desperately begging my brain to make it stop. I felt like I was slowly burning from the inside out. The darkness of my depression was so overwhelming I didn’t see a way to fix it except not being pregnant anymore. Through tears, I explained to the love of my life and father of this child that it was either the baby’s life or both of ours.
On a Friday night I sat researching abortion laws in my state and surrounding states. I knew I could not carry this baby to term without risking my life the whole way there. I remember, at 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant, reading that 24 weeks was the “cut off” for abortions in my state and we were heading into a holiday weekend. I was not only devasted by reading that, I was also terrified thinking, “this is how I die.”
A few days later, at 24 weeks and a couple days, I started showing symptoms of preterm labor. In hindsight the doctors now believe this was due to the extreme stress of my depression and I unfortunately would have to agree. My cervix had started to shorten.
Now, I had a physical pain to match what I was already feeling on the inside.
Over the course of four weeks, I was in and out of the maternity unit at my local hospital. I had one transfer when I started to dilate but he continued to stay put for the time being.
I was bed bound, in a hospital room, begging God to take my son from me or to just kill us both. I could not do it anymore. Yet still, he and I both hung on another week.
Finally at 27 weeks and 6 days, I entered the hospital having regular contractions, thinking this would be another two or three day stay like it had been all those times before. And I was right, except for the fact that I would be going home with an empty uterus and empty arms.
We named our son, Liam. Liam means strong-willed warrior and protector. While most people will focus on the fact that he is a strong-willed warrior for being born into this world too early and fighting to stay alive, I will always look at him as my protector who was born just in time and saved both of our lives.
After giving birth to Liam, immediately I felt relief from the weight of the depression I was in. It was like a light switch had gone off in me and I was free. The depression, the darkness, all lifted at 4:24am on October 8, 2021. No other time in my life has my depression ever been lifted within a moment like it was that day.
To the world, my son was born too early, and to most people I will agree with that. But to my husband and my mom and those who fought alongside me and for me by making our home “suicide proof” and essentially babysitting me so I would not hurt myself or the baby, I think we would agree he was born right on time.
Liam, my protector, whose middle name is David meaning beloved, is now my whole world. All it took was meeting him. I looked at him and I knew, although I probably couldn’t explain it at the time, that I would die for him in a heartbeat. This little 2-pound, 14-ounce strong-willed warrior, knew his Mama needed him to be earthside and he sacrificed his time in utero to save both our lives.
Josh and I still talk about the moment he was born and how he cried when they said he probably wouldn’t. I without a doubt believe he came out screaming, “it’s going to be okay now, Mama.”
From that moment on, I became not just a NICU mama, or Liam’s mama even, I became who I was meant to be my whole life.
Liam is now almost 16 months old and such a joy. I have a growing social media community about our NICU stay. Those days in the NICU were some of the hardest days of my life. But even they don’t compare to the absolute fires of hell that my pregnant depression had me in.
To think that my son, my life, would be so different had I looked up abortions just a week sooner. Or that if I had stayed pregnant any longer, both our lives could have ended. While being a mom, being Liam’s mom, is my true calling in life and honestly my greatest joy, I loathed every moment of becoming it. And yet, I’d do it all again to have my Liam.
-Jes Wagner
@NicuMamahood
