Grayson’s Homecoming

On Saturday at 2pm, Cathy and I walked out of Kaiser Anaheim as we had done almost every day for the last 2 and a half months. The only difference was that, this time, our newborn son Grayson was with us. After 56 days in the NICU (68 days if you count the two weeks of hospital bed-rest that Cathy had to undergo prior to Gray’s birth) Grayson was finally coming home.

It’s funny the little things you think about when you’re bringing your infant child home: “This is the first time he’s feeling sunlight.”  “I wish I’d washed the car. This is a momentous occasion and it really deserves a clean vehicle.”  “Dang, Cathy looks hot!”

We loaded our precious cargo into the backseat and Cathy climbed in beside him, while I got behind the wheel. As I pulled onto the 91 freeway and began the 20 mile drive home that has become so familiar, I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes began to overflow with tears. I cried for a lot of reasons:

Exhaustion: Words can’t properly express how grueling the last three months have been. There was a constant stream of demands that needed to happen since the day Cathy went into the hospital – there was the daily care of Ethan that needed to be arranged, work responsibilities, figuring out insurance issues and the little task of finding and moving into a new home that didn’t have mold in it. Then there was the emotional weight that was far heavier than any of the physical demands.

Relief: The last three months were a harrowing trip through the valley of the shadow of death. But as terrifying as each step has been, it could have been so much harder and so much worse. As we sat in the NICU on Friday getting the last minute training we needed to bring a preemie home, I overheard the doctor talking with the father of another child, a little girl named Sabrina. He was explaining that she had lost a little weight and dipped back under 3 lbs. Now, having been in that same position with Grayson some 8 weeks before, I suspected that she was just a newborn, but when I looked at her chart on the wall, I was shocked to see that she was actually older than Grayson by a week. She had been in the NICU 5 days longer than my son but was only just getting to where he had started out. In that moment, I realized just how monumental Grayson’s early release from the hospital was. After all he’d been through, the infections, the pneumonia, the collapsed lungs, and the myriad other challenges he faced, the fact that he was in the back of our car headed home to meet his big brother for the first time some three weeks before he was even supposed to be born was a miracle! Many of my tears were tears of relief that this part of our journey had finally come to a close.

Joy and Gratitude: The rest of my tears were those of a father who was excited to finally be bringing his family together, to finally be able to hold his son whenever he wanted, to be able to carry him in his arms without the intrusion of electronic tethers and squawking monitors.  Finally, after two months of holding my breath and praying for God’s protection, I got to feel the joy of a father with a healthy newborn. And as I drove home, observing the speed limit for the first time, I silently thanked God for this gift of Grayson in the backseat.

As I write this, my boy is sleeping on the couch next to me, swaddled in a warm blanket and apparently dreaming of something judging from his soft grunts and squeals. Every once in a while, he smiles and I feel a serenity that I haven’t felt in months. Peace has come to the Wayman household and I intend to rest in it for a while.

Thank you, God, for the gift of my son. May I never take his life or any of the other gifts you have showered on us for granted. And may you watch over Sabrina and all the other children still in the NICU, using that time not only to prepare them for the rest of their lives, but also to draw their parents into a more intimate dependency on you.