Note: This is a guest post written by Brian Wagnon (@isaacsdaddy on Tiwtter) - preemie dad and co-founder of Northeastern Oklahoma Parents of Preemies. Thanks so much Brian for letting us post this great piece. If you are a preemie dad, I'm sure many of the thoughts and feelings expressed will be familiar to you!
Why Did This Happen To Us?
When my wife got so sick with pre-eclampsia and ultimately ended up having a c-section at 30 weeks, this question kept coming up. Why did this happen to us? At the time I didn't know how close I had come to losing my wife, but in hindsight it is scary to think about. Not to mention looking at my son for the first time with all the equipment they had him hooked up to and him being only half as big as any other baby I had ever personally seen. When I came out of the NICU for the first time our relatives couldn't tell what had happened because I had this look on my face of complete and utter shock. It all happened so fast. One day we were wondering when we would get to go home from my wife's latest blood pressure scare and the next we had a preemie. Many times I just wondered why.
Even before my son was out of the NICU I believed that I had been given the answer to that question. There were tough days ahead, but our son was healthy and whole. He had no major problems and not even very many scares while in the NICU. That wasn't the case for other babies around him. Whether it was the extent of their stay,the laundry list of problems or the children that were probably being cared for better in the NICU than they would ever be in the rest of their lives you couldn't help but pick up that there was an overwhelming need there for support from someone who understands. I knew then that that was something I could provide. I am an ordained minister and counseling with people is one of the things I have been trying to develop in my ministry. I saw a huge opportunity in our situation. Dealing with having a premature child is something that you can't understand until you have been there, and God had put us there for a reason. God brought me this verse while studying and it expressed what I was thinking and feeling perfectly. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Almost a year has passed now. Our son is growing and keeping us really busy. I am still trying to figure out exactly where and how to use our experience to help others. I work full time as does my wife and we don't live close to a NICU. I want so much to use the experience to help others. My heart is using what God has given me to help others find peace and ultimately to find Him. I am strongly convinced that is why things happened the way they did. Every time I look at my son I see a miracle that screams that God is at work in my life and in the life of my family. I want everyone to feel that peace in the midst of a storm.
