Mamma Greene here-- I look forward to meeting with the cardio team today, Katelynn has an infection and had to receive another spinal tap, her third, poor little thing. I am amazed at how submitting Katelynn is to the IV team, she doesn't fight them and seems to just accept the procedures that need to be done. The IV team refers to her as a little pin cushion. Between her platelets, IV's and medicine's she has had to endure alot of needles. She is one tough little girl. Hopefully we will get a timeline for the heart surgery. This piture is of Katelynn in her little corner of Primary Children's NICU, bed 17.

I wrote this poem:

Permission

In life we learn to ask, “may I?”
Politeness rewards those requests
Youth seeks permission to
Wander the hall, to leave, to go..

Youth I ponder, not of mine but her’s
Anticipation mixes oddly with grief
None seek out these halls I enter
Just my name given, access granted

My child hooked to wires, a tube to
A machine aids her breath.
Heart pounds against her chest
Beating a rhythm against natures ideal

As youth lessons come, “may I?”
Trips on my heart, not the tongue.
Why must I ask to touch what I bore.
To seek permission to hold, my baby.

Denial is not meant to cause me pain
To ease hers, the first concern
Our goal the same for her to heal
Yet my arms remain painfully empty.

God I beseech for the chance
Permission pleaded to be equal
To mother this miracle soul
A child to raise.. to hold.. Please.

By Leta Greene