Loving Ashton

Shellshocked, I stand beside the NICU bed. My tiny son is lost in a maze of tubes and wires. Confused and intimidated by the army of machines standing guard around the bed, I stare helplessly at the efficient nurse caring for my baby.

This was not the plan. We have a crib set up at home with a cute set of bunny blankets. Grandparents and great grandparents and uncles and aunts eagerly lined up with soup and casseroles and cookies. Home. A whole day’s drive from this big city hospital.

A room full of experts meets with us, the naive country bumpkins barely out of our teens. Our baby, Ashton, has a serious heart condition. He will undergo multiple surgeries in his first ten years. We are too frightened to ask questions of these professionals.

Ashton and I stay in the hospital for seven weeks. He has two surgeries during this time. He is intubated for most of his stay, the tubes taking away the ability to make a sound. He cries in silence. Suffers withdrawal from the strong painkillers that he has become addicted to. He does not have the strength to suck much, so I must learn to tube feed him.

My husband goes home to work during the week several times. I am alone in our rented room in the outpatient ward with the bathroom tap that never stops dripping. I cry so much at night that the nurses stop when they see me come in the next morning and ask if I’m ok. Oh yes, I’m fine, thanks! I try not to cry as much the next night.

When Ashton is discharged, I am terrified. I will be responsible for this baby who cries so much. I have a pump and pole to administer tube feeds. Many different medications with different dosages to be given at different times. A nurse comes to check on him every week and reports back to his doctors. I do not feel as though Ashton is my child. I feel as though the big hospital grudgingly gave me a project to take home, and I’m always getting a failing grade. It’s such a struggle to even maintain his weight, let alone get him to grow.

He becomes a delightful little boy. While scooting around with his walker, he manages to grab a bag of popcorn kernels from the cupboard and dump them all over the floor, spinning his tires about in the mess. He likes to share the dog’s kibble.

By the time Ashton is a few years old, we are painfully aware that he is not such a normal little boy after all. The lack of oxygen to his brain during those first hours after birth, when no one realized that there was a problem, left him with brain damage.

Some more babies come along, and Ashton is fiercely jealous. If a sibling cries and I try to comfort them, he screams. So I sit on the floor, trying to hold and comfort three little people. Ashton just screams louder until all the frightening siblings are crying. Sometimes I dash into the pantry and shut the door. I cry amid the dust and broken crackers and cereal littering the floor, and the children cry on the other side of the door.

Life is difficult, trying to support Ashton and his siblings through several more surgeries. Mostly a happy child as he grows older, Ashton gifts us with much laughter. His blunt, unfiltered speech causes us much laughter (also some embarrassment)! To an uncle’s girlfriend when he observes her shiny red toenails;

“Yikes! What’s all that blood?” To a random stranger;

“Boy, you must really smoke! You’re teeth are so yellow!”

Today, Ashton is an adult, living in a private group home with one other client. He volunteers in the local thrift store, where he has a wonderful time sorting through stuff and bringing treasures home.

So many things we have tried to teach him; tin cans do not go in the microwave! (But the sparks are so cool!) Do not drink from the bottles you collect in the ditch, even if it looks like juice! But he has taught us many more things.

When I walk into the thrift store, he exclaims in a tremendous bellow,

“Hello! Mommy Dearie!” and customers gape in astonishment at the bearded young man leaping and cavorting down the aisle to greet me.

He teaches us to love unapologetically and without abandon. Even though I have made so many mistakes in my journey of motherhood, I am so humbled and so proud to be Mommy Dearie.