Chapter Three: Days in the Hospital—Day and Night, Walking Alongside a Life
Forty-two days.
That was how long Little Wheat spent in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after he was born.
Six weeks.
Written on a calendar, it does not seem very long.
But for us at the time, every day moved slowly.
Incubator, oxygen saturation monitoring, feeding tube, cardiac monitor—terms that had once belonged only to hospitals quickly became part of our everyday life.
His little hand was connected to monitoring equipment,
and his tiny chest rose and fell with each breath.
As parents, we suddenly discovered that something we had never paid attention to before—
a child's normal breathing—is itself something worthy of gratitude.
The care board recorded his condition every day.
Weight, oxygen, feeding volume, care plan.
For the medical staff, these numbers were part of clinical work; for us, they became the first things we cared about when we woke each day.
If one number went up a little, we were happy.
If it went down a little, we worried.
Only later did I understand:
When a person truly loves another life, even numbers that once seemed cold begin to carry warmth.
Every morning, I went to the NICU.
Only after cleaning, sanitizing, and going through the required procedures could I come to his side.
The nurses gradually came to know me.
Sometimes someone would call me:
“Pastor Dad.”
I would smile when I heard it.
But standing beside the incubator, I did not really feel like a pastor who knew all the answers.
I was simply a father.
I looked at my child and prayed silently again and again:
“Lord, give him a little more strength today.”
When he slept peacefully, I would sit there and watch him.
I watched his breathing,
his fingers,
and the occasional slight movement of his body.
Sometimes I read Scripture to him.
One verse from the Psalms often came into my heart during those days:
“But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.” —Psalm 22:9, KJV
In the afternoon, I would usually go again.
Sometimes I went alone,
and sometimes Sue came with me.
We sang “Jehovah Is Love,” and we also sang “Give Thanks.”
We did not know how much he could understand.
But parents do not wait until a child understands before they begin speaking words of love.
So we told him again and again:
“Little Wheat, Daddy and Mommy are here.”
When we returned home, our hearts were still in the hospital room.
The NICU video monitor was often open on our computer.
Late one night, I saw on the screen a nurse caring for him, and suddenly he opened his eyes.
It was only a very small movement.
I immediately took a screenshot and sent it to Sue.
We actually cried because those eyes had opened.
Later, we knelt down and prayed.
There were many moments like that during those forty-two days.
Sometimes we had great faith.
Sometimes, in truth, we were very afraid.
Sometimes our prayers felt strong.
Sometimes we could not even form a complete sentence.
And in this back-and-forth, faith became real.
During Little Wheat's hospitalization, his weight dropped at one point.
The nurse told us that some degree of weight change is not uncommon in newborns.
Intellectually, we understood.
Emotionally, it still hurt.
His mother prayed for him every day.
I also began continually writing devotional notes.
Those pages did not contain only “faith.”
They also contained fear,
helplessness,
repentance,
and hope.
Perhaps this was one of the important lessons those forty-two days taught me:
True faith does not mean that fear disappears forever; it means that when we are afraid, we still return to God again and again.
The nurses also gradually became familiar with this quiet child.
He did not cry or fuss very much. Much of the time he simply slept quietly, occasionally opening his eyes to look around.
One nurse joked:
“He's like a little monk, as if he's meditating on something.”
We all laughed.
There was a prayer card in the NICU.
On it we wrote:
John Earnest Zhang—may your whole life glorify the name of the Lord.
During those forty-two days, we never stopped going to see him.
We did not know what would happen in the future.
At the time, all we knew was this:
If we could go today, we went.
If we could hold him today, we held him.
If we could still sing today, we sang.
If we could still see him breathing today, we gave thanks.
Looking back now, what those forty-two days left behind was not only a medical record.
More than that, it was the memory of two parents learning, little by little, how to walk alongside their child.
Little Wheat,
you may not remember those days.
But Daddy and Mommy remember.
When you were at your most fragile,
we were there.