The sourest lemons life has to offer

Happy New Year ! Or, a day short. But it sure has been a while, hasn't it ? 

I am now heading into my LAST semester of nursing school ? LAST ! I'm still trying to process it all & wonder how two years flew by. Or more so, how all the years leading up to this moment have flown by. I'm still trying to process it all, and don't think I'm even close to wrapping my head around all of it. Up till this point I have been tested in ways I had no idea I would be able to endure. 

Go back further to even before this nursing journey, I have captured and documented this whole entire journey with Joshua from the start. I will forever be grateful that I have this time capsule of words, feelings and emotions forever documented. Before I even knew what I wanted to do as far as career wise, I was a very pregnant and scared mom looking for an outlet to let all the feelings out. I stumbled upon Barycenter and found a group of women that became my friends and so the journey to preemie hood began....My story ended differently than theirs did, but for that I know that although I will never know a "reason" Joshua's life brought me into my own. Without him, my whole entire journey afterwards would never have been. 

Nursing school has been every bit as difficult as I thought. It has tested me in ways I didn't know was possible. I wondered if this was the correct path for me, but during this semester during the most serendepitous moment, I ended up doing my mother/baby rotation at the hospital which Joshua was born at and at the NICU he was at for 3 months before being transferred. Had I mentally prepared myself for this ? I thought so. But, I had not been back to this hospital since his birth and being back on the floor in which I was for the days following his emergency c-section brought me right back to that very dark place of feelings, emotions and trauma I had never worked through. I thought that being back at the place he was born wouldn't be triggering, but in fact it brought so many unresolved feelings back up.....It was a rough week, but I'm thankful for all the therapy I have put in and deciding to go back to therapy during summer to get me through these last couple of months. 

These last couple of months have been intense, especially these last 6 weeks where I was doing my ICU rotation and class. 

Yet, here I am, heading into my last semester and I graduate in May.....I can't even begin to think about what this entire journey has been like. And, maybe I will write about that later, but right now I just wanted to document before the year is over that, life can hand you the most difficult gut wrenching tragedies that you will never understand and find some sort of meaning in the midst of it. Giving birth to Joshua and seeing my first born son scarred me in a way that I will never ever be able to explain, but it has also shaped me into the person I am today. All the people I have met since his birth and after have all played a part into this journey and I hope to be able to give back by becoming a NICU nurse. 

I will be a NICU nurse. 

To those parents who are scared, frightened, feel helpless and like no one understands what they're going through, I do. I hope to give back into helping the lives of all the future tiny patients I have and advocate for their lives and for their parents. 

Life is cruel and beautiful and confusing.....life handed me the sourest lemons life has to offer & I made something resembling lemonade with it.....

When I made Joshua's memorial video I put the ABBA song 'Chiquita' and I now have a new found meaning to it.....these lyrics are much more meaningful 

"Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong

You're enchained by your own sorrow

In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow
How I hate to see you like this
There is no way you can deny it
I can see that you're oh so sad, so quiet

Chiquitita, you and I know

How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they're leaving
You'll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita, you and I cry
But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, Chiquitita
Try once more like you did before"

If I could go back to the mother, the woman I was when I lost Joshua in 2010 I would want to say, keep going. You're going to make you & Joshua So so proud.  The days will forever be less bright and a seem longer, but you will find meaning in all of this pain. And, his life will forever be remembered. 

Yesenia BSN. RN NICU Nurse May 2023