October 10th

A year ago today, my baby was lying in the NICU.

Wires. Scans. Monitors.

And me, down a hallway, through doors and around corners, trying to process why my baby wasn’t lying on my chest. Trying to understand what had just happened. Trying to wrap my head around the fact that I had spent months imagining the moment I would meet my son, and somehow, it looked nothing like I thought it would.

No birth goes exactly to plan, but mine took a pretty hard right turn.

I’ve spent a lot of the last year trying to make sense of what happened on October 10, 2025. It started as what felt like a fast-moving labor and the excitement of finally getting to hold my baby. Then, almost without warning, the room began to fill with nurses. Quiet conversations. Worried looks. Faces I didn’t quite understand.

Then my doctor walked in. She gave me a look I hadn’t seen on her face before, and she said the words that would change the course of my morning.

“We need to go in for an emergency C-section.”

There’s a lot about that early morning that I can’t remember clearly. But those words? I remember them vividly.

Before I could fully process what was happening, I was in an operating room surrounded by people in scrubs I had never met, beneath lights brighter than anything I had ever seen. Everyone seemed to know what needed to happen except me. Things were moving quickly, and I was trying desperately to catch up.

I still didn’t fully understand why this was happening. I just knew that my baby was coming, and I was about to meet him.

Then, at 7:38 a.m., I heard a cry.

And over the curtain came the tiniest, most perfect little boy I had ever seen.

My little boy.

For a moment, there he was. The baby I had spent months dreaming about. The person I already loved more than I could have possibly understood.

Then the crying stopped.

And just like that, I couldn’t see him anymore.

Doctors and nurses surrounded him, completely out of my sight. I kept asking to see him, and I kept being told no. At the time, I didn’t understand. I just wanted someone to bring my baby back to me. Looking back, I’m grateful they were doing what they needed to do to help him.

My perfect little boy was struggling to breathe. He had a significant amount of fluid in his lungs, and he needed more help than I could give him.

“He needs to go to the NICU.”

As a brand-new mom, all I wanted was for him to go. Go as quickly as they could. Get him the help he needed. Make sure he was going to be okay.

So he left.

And I stayed behind on the operating table while my doctor closed me up.

I don’t remember much after that. The next few hours are a blur, but there’s one thing I remember feeling more than anything else.

I didn’t have my baby.

And my baby didn’t have his mom.

He didn’t spend more than two days in the NICU. I know that now, and I know how fortunate we were that he was able to come home so soon. But when you’re a new mom, two days can feel like a lifetime when your baby is somewhere you can’t be with him whenever you want.

People talk about the newborn bubble. Those first few days in the hospital when you get to stare at your baby for hours, memorize every tiny feature, hold them close, and slowly figure out how to be a mom. The exhaustion, the overwhelming love, the quiet moments when it’s just you and this tiny person you somehow already know you would do anything for.

I missed the version of those moments I had imagined.

I couldn’t just pick up my own baby whenever I wanted. Someone had to hand him to me. I couldn’t roll over in the middle of the night and see his little blue hat and perfect nose. I had to wait until someone could wheel me down the hallway to his room.

I couldn’t simply keep him close. I had to ask. I had to wait. I had to leave him when I wanted nothing more than to stay.

And I think that’s one of the hardest things to explain about the NICU. You can know, logically, that your baby is exactly where he needs to be. You can be grateful for every nurse, every monitor, every person working to help him get better. You can understand that they are keeping your baby safe.

And still, every part of you can ache to have him back in your arms.

Both things can be true.

Nobody really understands what the NICU feels like until they experience it themselves. I certainly didn’t. Before Tucker, I had no idea how heartbreaking it could be to love someone so much and have so little control over the simplest things, like when you get to hold them or when you get to see them again.

I knew I loved my baby. I just hadn’t yet learned how much it would hurt to be away from him. 

So yes, a year ago, I was lying in a hospital bed, wondering when I would get to hold my baby again. I had no idea what our life together would look like. I didn’t know his laugh, his personality, the way his little face would light up, or how much of my heart could exist outside of my own body.

I didn’t know that the days that felt so impossibly long would eventually become a memory I would revisit on his first birthday. I didn’t know how quickly the months would pass or how much I would miss even the hardest parts of his babyhood once they were gone.

I wish our story had started differently. I wish I could have held him against my chest that morning and never had to let go. I wish I could have experienced those first few days the way I had imagined them.

But if there’s one thing this year has taught me, it’s that the beginning of a story doesn’t determine how beautiful the rest of it will be.

And Tucker, you have made this past year more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

Happy first birthday, my boy. You were worth every second.