Callum, 31 weeks

Miracle mum Caidie shares Callum's story:

There’s a Part of Me

There’s a part of me
that misses the hospital.

Not the reason I was there,
not the fear,
not the days that blurred into each other
but the safety of it.

The same bed waiting for me each night.
The nurses who knew my name.
The doctors who checked, and checked again.
The strange comfort of knowing
that if something went wrong,
I was already exactly where I needed to be.

And there’s another part of me
that cannot believe I survived being there at all.

That I somehow learned to wake up
without Will beside me.
That I missed pieces of his little life
while desperately trying to protect his brother’s.

Now that I’m home with him,
I look at his face and wonder
how I ever managed to be apart from him.

There’s a part of me
that cannot believe I slept without my partner beside me,
night after night,
waking up alone
to another day of uncertainty.

I don’t know where that strength came from.

Maybe I wasn’t strong because I wasn’t scared.
Maybe I was strong because every single day
I was scared,
and I stayed anyway.

There’s a part of me
that still believes I could have kept Callum safe inside me.

That maybe if I had held on tighter,
rested more,
hoped harder,
prayed harder,
my body could have carried him all the way.

The doctors can explain the reasons.
They can tell me what was happening inside my body.
They can tell me why he needed to be born.

But there is still a mother inside me
who whispers,
I could have kept him safe.

There’s a part of me
that still hasn’t caught up with what happened.

My waters broke at 24 weeks.

Twenty-four weeks.

I had the kind of pregnancy
people describe as complex and high risk,
and somehow those words still feel like
they belong to somebody else’s story.

Except they don’t.

They belong to mine.

There’s a part of me
that finds comfort in the NICU.

The monitors.
The nurses.
The numbers.
The knowledge that someone is watching him
even when I close my eyes.

And there’s a much louder part of me
that hates every second of needing it.

That wants to unplug every wire,
pull every tube away,
wrap my baby against my chest
and break him out.

Take him home.

Put him where he was always supposed to be.

With us.

There’s a gut wrenching feeling everytime you leave
A feeling that you have forgotten something
And you have

There’s a part of me
that aches for the ordinary things
I once took for granted.

My partner.
My boys.
Our home.
Our mess.
Our routines.

All four of us
under the same roof.

And yet, when I imagine that day,
there’s fear there too.

Because I have spent so long being told
that my baby needs watching.

So long listening for alarms.
Watching numbers.
Studying every breath.

How do you simply walk out of a hospital
and suddenly trust the silence?

The beeps have followed me.

Somewhere along the way
they stopped being sounds
and became warnings.

My body knows them before my mind does.

There’s a part of me
that hates being asked,

“How’s Callum doing?”

because I know people mean well.

But I never know how to answer.

He’s good.
Except when he isn’t.

He’s improving.
Except when tomorrow looks different.

He’s getting stronger.
Except prematurity doesn’t move in a straight line.

Sometimes I don’t have an update.

Sometimes I just have a baby
who I love more than words can hold
and a heart that is exhausted
from measuring life in oxygen saturations, feeds,
grams, breaths and beeps.

And I don’t know how to fit that
into a casual answer.

There’s a part of me
that knows I will never be exactly who I was before this.

Something in me has changed.

Life feels more fragile now.

More precious.

I know how quickly the world you recognise
can disappear beneath your feet.

And somewhere between
hospital rooms,
lonely nights,
a traumatic birth,
incubators,
machines
and tiny victories

my life audited itself.

People showed me who they were.

Some stepped forward
without needing to be asked.

Some gave me space
without disappearing.

Some held pieces of my life together
when I couldn’t hold everything myself.

And some people disappointed me
at a time when I will never forget
how badly I needed kindness.

There are words spoken during this chapter
that I cannot unhear.

Things done
that I cannot unknow.

Maybe one day they won’t hurt as much.

But forgiveness is not something
I owe simply because I survived.

Because there’s a part of me
that came out of this softer

and another part
that came out harder.

A part that loves deeper.
Protects fiercer.
Notices more.
Tolerates less.

I am grateful
and I am angry.

I am proud
and I am traumatised.

I miss places
I never wanted to be.

I want desperately to go home,
while being terrified of leaving the safety behind.

I want this chapter to end,
and somehow I already know
there are pieces of it
I will carry forever.

Maybe healing isn’t choosing
which one of those feelings is true.

Maybe they are all true.

Maybe there are simply
many parts of me now.

The mother who stayed.

The mother who broke.

The mother who kept going.

The mother who wishes she could have kept him inside her longer.

The mother who watches the monitors.

The mother who wants to rip them all away.

The mother who misses her first baby
while sitting beside her second.

The mother who longs for home.

The mother who is frightened of what happens
when we finally get there.

And underneath every single one of them
is the same woman

changed,
exhausted,
grateful,
angry,
scarred,
strong,

and loving her boys
with absolutely everything she has.