I'm a hostage. Held captive by situations I don't want to be in, places that are far from home, car rides, endless pumping routines, monitor beepings, tubes and hats and pricks and oxygen requirements that I cannot change. I can't change any of this. This season has me in its relentless grip, and there's nothing for me now but to throw my hands in the air. Checkmate. I surrender.

When I started this journey, it was easy to see that I was at the beginning of a long, long tunnel, but I could see there was a light at the end of it. Somehow, I could cope with our circumstances when I knew I was at ground zero and there was only up. Now? Now it's not so clear. This saga has taught me that ground zero can plummet altitude in a matter of hours. The tunnel only keeps getting longer. The light that should be getting brighter is only getting dimmer.

Alder is 8 weeks, 5 days old. 33 weeks corrected. Four pounds last night. I was told at the beginning that some babies go home at his age, his weight. I saw one, actually, in the early days when we were staying at the Mcdonald house. She held him close and I could hardly look at her taking her baby home when mine was fighting for every second of living. I told myself it was ok, that one day it would be me taking my tiny baby home just like her. Well, here we are at what I thought was this arrival, but instead I'm told only "we'll do everything we can to inch him through this," and "you'll probably take him home on oxygen," and "some babies go home on cpap." Wait and see, wait and see, wait and see...All I can think now is how I hate every minute of this waiting game. And I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't walk into that nicu again. I can't watch his sats dip every time I hold him. (What I think is him, anyway. Could be just a bundle of sheets with a hat and a mask and a paci peeping through?) I can't be thankful anymore. I can't write beautiful things or say beautiful things or think beautiful things that give me or anybody else hope. I. Just. Can't.

I'm pissed and weary and beat up. All the standing I've been doing has earned me nothing but a pair of weakened knees and varicose veins. Getting dressed feels as laborious as preparing for a gala, putting one foot in front of the other feels as exhausting as an Iron Man, putting words on a page feels as daunting as penning The Odyssey. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this now, other than a spark of a hope that the simple act of putting feelings "on paper" will eventually help me come round to finding the beauty in all this busted.

Some days, all I can do is throw my hands in the air and cry.

My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?

The other day I came across a wall hanging at a tiny shop in Raleigh: a daddy bear with a baby bear riding on his shoulders. I don't know why I was so taken with it, but I must have looked a fool standing there, nearly sobbing. I kept thinking of Sam, the way he used to carry Brooks around downtown, yearning for the day he'll get to do the same with Alder. That daddy bear looked so strong, that baby so little, so content, so secure. So carried.

And I'm realizing that I'm not a mama bear like I thought. I'm just a cub. I need all the strength and hope and power I've been praying into and for my baby. I need to be cradled and caressed and there's no denying now that I'm as much a baby bear as I ever have been.

"I will contend with those who contend with you. And I will save your children," He says. Well, I'm the child needing defending now. I'm the child needing rescue I need the same promises needed for my son.

So I'll keep throwing my hands up in the air. But not in bullied surrender, but in expectant pleading. Pick me up, Daddy? Throw me on your shoulders, Papa? Carry me across this river with the current too strong for my tiny body to stand against. Will You carry me?