It was two or three hours later before we heard anything else. We were waiting in my room when a doctor came in and introduced herself as the head of the NICU. She basically explained that our baby was very, very sick. They had done everything they could to figure out what was wrong, but they still didn’t know. They didn’t have the proper tools there at the hospital to figure out what was going on, so they were going to send him up to Primary Children’s Hospital. Life Flight was already on the way.
James had been able to go out of the room and get a glimpse or two of the baby while he was in the NICU – he and his Dad had even been able to give him a blessing – but all I had seen was the quick snap shot from across the room. I was so grateful when the doctor told us that they would bring him into my room so I could see him before he left. It took the Life Flight doctors a good half an hour to 45 minutes to get him stabilized and ready for the flight, and then they wheeled him down so I could see him. The first time I really got to see my baby, he was inside of an incubator all hooked up to tubes and wires.
I wanted to touch him, but didn’t ask because I didn’t know if I could, and didn’t want to be told no. So I got to sit in my bed and look at my baby for a few moments before they took him away again.
James followed them out to the helicopter. He said that the baby was so sick, he couldn’t even handle hitting any bumps on the way down – so the Life Flight doctors had to lift up his entire bed – incubator, cart and all – whenever they came to a tiny bump in the floor so that he wouldn’t be jostled.
After the Life Flight team left to fly the baby 30 or so miles up to Primary Children’s Hopsital, James came back to my room for a few minutes before he and his dad would follow them up there in the car. We had everyone leave the room, and James climbed beside me in my bed and we just held each other and cried.
We hadn’t decided on a name yet, but knew that we needed to right away. We already had the middle name Lamar picked out, after a close friend and neighbor who lived behind James growing up, but we didn’t have a first name picked out yet. We really liked the name Enzo (we had occasionally called him Enzo before we even knew he was a boy), but hadn’t decided between Vincenzo and Lorenzo. We also liked the nickname Vinnie, so if we named the first kid Lorenzo and called him Enzo, we could later have a Vincenzo and call him Vinnie. We had been leaning towards Vincenzo, but it was a mouth full. (Who in this English speaking country was going to ever know that the c in his name was pronounced “ch” because it was Italian?) However, we had to decide quickly. We didn’t know what was going on, how sick he was, or how long he would be here with us. So we went with the one we had been leaning towards, and Baby Boy LeFevre became Vincenzo Lamar LeFevre. (I know, we doomed him forever. It took Grandpa LeFevre a week before he could say it right, and Grandpa Steve would ask, “What is his name again?” and when I would tell him, I’d hear a long pause and then,”….Oh.” I still don’t know if he can say Vincenzo. As I say to many, we just call him Enzo.)
James left with his dad to go up to the hospital with Enzo, and James’ mom stayed with me until my cousin Cassie came later to spend the night. Melanie left when Cassie got there, and Cassie got to spend what I’m sure was a very uncomfortable night in a chair by my bed. I’m very grateful to both of them for being with me that night so I wouldn’t have to be alone.
It was around midnight when I was finally able to try and get some sleep. My baby had been taken from me before I ever got to touch him. It was sad, and it was hard, but the entire time I was filled with a peace and assurance that it would be okay. I know that words won’t do justice to explain how I felt, but I know that I was being strengthened and supported by my Heavenly Father. I just knew it would all be okay. As I lay there in bed, I prayed for my baby. I prayed that Heavenly Father would watch over him and keep him safe. It came to me then that the feeling I had, that everything would be okay, might not be the same kind of “okay” that I would like. Okay might be a healthy baby (like I wanted, of course), okay could be a minor sickness, or okay could be Heavenly Father taking my baby back home with him. But I knew it would be okay, even if Enzo didn’t make it. I cried as I prayed, knowing that I would be okay whatever happened, but please, just let me hold my baby first.
I’m so grateful to the answer to my prayers that night. Things are okay, and I did get to hold my baby. And I don’t know if it’s a mom thing, or if it is because of my experiences with Enzo’s rough start to life, but I still can’t get enough of holding my baby. I feel like that story, “I’ll Love You Forever” – I too go in at night, after my baby is fast asleep, and rock him back and forth, back and forth. But unlike that story, where she says, “As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be,” I get to know that he’ll be my baby not just while he or I are living, but for eternity.
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