My Mother’s Day as a Preemie Mom

Last Mother’s Day, I woke up sweating in a hospital bed after a night of magnesium sulfate and trying to ward off premature labor for a little longer. My water had broken at 28 weeks and I’d spent two weeks going in and out of labor. A nurse had just taken my vitals, pronounced me fit to eat solid food for the first time in 20 hours, and handed me a sheet of paper that said “Regular Diet Breakfast” at the top.

A few minutes later, breakfast appeared: scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. I am usually vegetarian and avoid cholesterol, but I downed my breakfast – bacon and all. The eggs were slimy, the toast was cold, and the bacon was chewier than it should have been. I was a grouch.

My two older children, husband, and mother came to visit me in the hospital. My husband brought lilacs that made the whole room smell amazing. My mom brought homemade blueberry muffins that made me regret eating the aforementioned nasty hospital food. And my children brought a book they had made called “If You Give a Mom a Muffin.”

That brightened my day significantly, but I still sulked about being in the hospital on Mother’s Day. I missed the daily chatter over bowls of cereal, the bickering about whether we would watch Dora or Curious George, the walk to and from school, and the sluggishness of our bedtime routine.

I will enjoy this Mother’s Day that much more. Even though my daughter had a fit about not being able to find her favorite firetruck sweatshirt this morning, and my son rolled his eyes when I told him to brush his teeth, and my baby clung to me like a boa constrictor for a few hours in the middle of the night, it is the minutiae of motherhood that I love most.

For every annoying or painful moment, there are a zillion more golden moments. My daughter walked to school without complaining this morning. My son read a book to the baby – unprompted. My baby just learned how to throw his arms around my neck and squeeze for a hug. It isn’t the breakfast that will make Mother’s Day great; it is the things we do every day.