He would be dead.

He was 3 weeks old when we met him... just a little over 3 pounds.

"Do you want to hold him?" She asked Joey...

"You'll be the first to hold him besides us..." 

and as she handed him to Joey....

"He has such wise eyes... he looks right into your heart."

"He's been through so much... he's such a fighter...." 

And she stood to the side as we got to know our new son.

In those 6 weeks, countless women and men loved on our tiny, precious boy...

 they loved on us, too.

After spending a week 6 hours away from home, getting to know our son, Joey had to go back to work... 

and most weekdays, I was alone;

My day would start and end at the Ronald McDonald House and every hour in between was spent with him... with them...

his first caregivers... some of the very first ones to love him... the first ones to pray over him... 

the first ones to pray for us...

the first ones to acknowledge us as his Mommy and Daddy.

They were the first to hold him... change him... talk to him...

the first to teach us how to care for him...

for this precious, tiny miracle...

they never left our side.

They helped us keep our heads above water... juggling the time we knew we had with our sweet girl...

and the time we had with him... 

not knowing how much of that time we had left.

As the weeks went by, we became family... I trusted them... and they trusted me.

I knew their stories...

and they were now part of mine.

The long shifts with short breaks... 

I was there for hundreds of them.

Take a walk... eat... get some fresh air... call their mom or their husband or their friend... read... listen to music that might break up the deafening sound of beeping monitors and crying babies...

they could have... should have... done anything with those short breaks....

but most days, they would sit with me.

I had held him for hours... skin to skin... begging Jesus to save him, to give him strength, to equip us to be his Mama and Daddy... watching monitors religiously as they put numbers on his life... terrified that today might be my last day with him, while it was really only one of my first...

and they would sit with me... making the horrifying sounds disappear within the soft words of our conversation.

They gave me purpose...

 and peace.

They gave me permission to love him... they placed him in my arms... 

they made me his Mama.

The doctors blew me off because I wasn't his 'real' mom... and she fought for me.

He needed to gain 3 ounces in order to start bottle feeds... and she knew he was ready so she added .5 ounces to his midnight weigh-in.

He needed to eat 30 cc's in order to keep the ng-tube out and be able to go home... she let me sleep and didn't stop feeding him until he had eaten it all.

He coded... and she saved him.

But they weren't just there for him....

I was cold... so she brought me a warm blanket.

I didn't want to spend another night alone... so she arranged to let me room in with him.

I couldn't do it on my own anymore... she let me cry and told me I wasn't doing it alone; that she was there with me.

I needed Joey to get there in time for rounds, but he was 30 minutes away and rounds had already started... so she changed the attending's schedule.

She trusted my Mommy instinct... she trusted that I knew him best... she trusted that my heart knew him... even though he didn't come from my body. 

The doctors told us he was going to die.... and none of them let him.

Lindsay.... Jackie.... Betsy.... Ellie.... Melissa.... Jennifer.... Rob.... and so many more.

They saved him.

I don't watch The View OR the Miss America Pageant...

I hate them both...

but since they're all clogging my news feed... and since so many of our friends and family have dedicated their lives to a profession as difficult as nursing...

this is the perfect opportunity for us to say "thank you" to every one of them...

but especially to the ones who saved our son.

And when this is your son... your precious miracle... your fighter...

the reality of who he is, of where he's been, of what could have been, and of where he is going...

 is never very far from your mind.

And without them...

without his nurses...

he would be dead.