The hardest words a mother can ever hear are, “I have no memories of you ever being healthy. “

When I was 26 my husband and I lost our twins to two seperate miscarriages three weeks apart.  I was destroyed, my entire life I drempt of being a mom and I had it taken away twice.  As directed by my doctor, my husband and I waited three months to try and get pregnant again. Thankfully, God blessed us with our son Jacob. 

Jacob was born almost six weeks early, had no suck and turned blue when he tried to eat. We spent five days in the NICU only to be released and rushed back to the hospital four hours later for another blue spell.  Jacob spent another week in the NICU, but he finally learned to eat and we came home. In addition to this nightmare, he had awful acid reflux, his eyes developed late due to his wry neck resulting in him wearing a helmet and glasses, and he was diagnosed with severe asthma. 

Jacob faced so many obstacles his first year of life, I always felt in my heart the first year full of ER trips would be the worst hand he was handed, but I was so wrong.

After that first year, the next three and a half years of Jacobs life we were always on the go. Being a teacher permitted me entire summers and holiday breaks that were filled with trips to the zoo, splash parks, science centers, playgrounds indoor and out, weekend getaways and once a week during the summer I would take Jacob to meet up with my husband and the three of us would have ice cream and ride the train, Model-T cars, or go on the merry-go-round at Greenfield Village. Even after four knee surgeries when he turned four, that summer I taught him to ride his bike.

But from age four and on, my body betrayed me more and more each day, more surgeries added up and the fun adventures went away.

Instead of going out we had movies with mom in bed and he would bring  his stuffed friends for sleepovers in our room.  I felt we were still making “good memories,” little did I know he processed this time much differently.

2019 brought the start of high school and Jacob was asked to write about his favorite childhood memory in his Freshmanliteratureclass.  So I grabbed the scrapbooks I spent hours making excited to jog his memories.  Instead of seeing him smile, Jacob looked at me and with a frown and said, “I have no memory of these events and can’t imagine a time you were healthy enough to do them with me.” My heart broke and remains broken now three years later.  I am angry that due to my illnesses my son has not only had to witness me always being in pain, but it’s all he can recall. No child should EVER have their good memories stolen because so many bad memories have filled their head of their mother always being sick.