Branded

I am going to take a break from the journal for now. DOL 8- 35 (weeks 2 to 5) will be continued on the next post... I promise! I've also been quite busy and not able to update the blog as ofter as I would like.

I have been waiting a long time to write a post titled "branded". I thought about it while we were still at the hospital. I would sit in the NICU for hours and apart from praying (my prayer life was running on red bull), I would also think about work. Yes, WORK! Because I like what I do. If I could only sell my ideas, instead of giving them away to corporate America. I thought about at least 3 possible marketing campaigns specific to the NICU. Would any one like to hear? Maybe, on another post.

I will often start my presentations with a few definitions to make sure that the audience and I are on the same page. I think the following rings true to any profession: just because you dabble in something doesn't mean you are an expert. Let me bring it closer to home - just because you read PC Magazine that doesn't make you an IT guy or just because you have that professional grade hair trimming kit doesn't mean your 5 year old son's haircut will look like a barber shop cut (I must continue repeating that second part about the trimmer to myself - poor David!).

...I digress.

So, what is a brand? It is an identity. What do people think about or feel when they see a brand like Coca-Cola or Starbucks? A brand should evoke certain emotions in the consumer that will persuade him/her to buy your product over the competition. Maybe, because you have associated your brand to a cause that the customer can identify with. That is why in October we see all of the products in the stores that will donate to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The pink ribbon campaign is huge and if you have known me long enough, you know that I have always supported that cause. Now-a-days it is all about the "brand", but not only related to products such as the iPad, but personal brands like Kim Kardashian, Obama (the single most impressive marketing campaign that I have ever seen... the iPresident) and Justin Beiber just to name a few and to upset Edwin by including Justin Beiber's name in my post.

While I was at the NICU, I would read the headlines on yahoo.com. One day, the headline read: "Jennifer Aniston's new hair style". Being in the NICU with my son and on my last nerve, I was livid. Why was I having to read about some one's hair when at the NICU there were dozens of much more dignified stories about nurses and families and God. I will get back to this later in the post.

Parents of NICU babies wear a wrist band. It is your access to the NICU and to you child. The wrist band gets weathered as the weeks go by. By week 2 or 3, the security guards don't even look at your wrist. They already know your face and sometimes your name. In the parking lot, on the elevator or in the cafeteria you can always tell who are the NICU parents beause of the wrist band. One day, Edwin walked into a customer's office and when one of the managers saw the wrist band he immediately asked what was wrong. That man had been in the NICU with his twin daughters a few years before and even though he wasn't wearing the wrist band, he was still wearing the mark of the NICU. The NICU will BRAND you in more ways than one.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we were fortunate that Jonathan did not to have any complications, other than being premature. The first 72 hours were the most intense as you may have read in my previous post, but God being so merciful carried us through the rest of our time there with a healthy, normal growing preemie.

In high school, I graduated second in my class. I gave the opening speech at graduation where I urged every one to leave their mark. What did I really mean at 18? Several years wiser, I realize, I didn't know what I was talking about and I would have never believed it if some one had told me how certain events, decision, actions can leave their mark and in some cases a scar. At the NICU, I never asked why. I felt as if I knew why. Reasons abounded. I also knew that I couldn't negotiate myself out of the will of God - what ever it was, but I could beg for mercy and I did.

The experience of having a premature child, as frightening as it was, didn't leave a scar. I was branded at the NICU, but not by what you would imagine. I was Branded by the Love that I received from being in the NICU. Agape. Unconditional Love. The greatest of all Loves. A Love that brings forth caring regardless of cricumstance. Charity. The Love that is perfect and that can only come from God manifested through the care of the NICU nurses, doctors, others who reached out to me while at SMH and our friends and family. The Love these ANGELS gave to us. The Love that God manifested through His saving grace.

This Brand that I now wear on my heart has evoked emotions like affection, friendship and gratitude. It has humbled me and I am persuaded to react differently than I would have reacted before. The physical pain I experienced the day Jonathan was born, although it was intense, could not be compared to the pain I experienced when I felt I had been forsaken and that he would surely die. It was like a hot iron on my chest. And although that pain has subsided, [happily] I will never be the same again.

Isaiah 49.15-16: Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.


Rosie

PS - that is not my tattoo! ;)