By Julien Bouteiller
Published on
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This year, Christmas will have a special flavor for Mathilde and her partner. These two moms are going spend New Years Eve in the hospital, with their hospitalized daughter since his birth two months ago. If the festive atmosphere will be lacking in this year 2020, the hope for better days is there.
Their baby hospitalized, they live at the Maison des Parents
Amy was born on October 19 with severe pathology which required care from birth in hospital. Her mothers therefore left Aisne where they live to settle at the Maison des Parents de Lille, 300 meters from the Jeanne-de-Flandre hospital.
“This allows us to be able to spend whole days with our daughter”, testifies Mathilde, 35 years old. The Maison des Parents pleasantly surprised us with the location and the welcome, we have everything we need to live as normally as possible.«
The Maison des Parents is usually a meeting place with the other families but, Covid-19 requires, contact there is currently limited. The daily life of young mothers is therefore punctuated by visits to their babies and evenings spent in their room.
It gives us a little parenthesis anyway, outside the hospital with the machines beeping and all the rest.
A New Year’s Eve against a background of Covid-19
Céline Bernard, director of the reception center for families at the Ronald McDonald’s Foundation, hopes create some Christmas magic all the same despite the context. “Usually, we have a big meal with all the families, at the beginning, they don’t have the head to that but every time it’s full of joy“, She explains.
This year, no friendly banquet but despite everything a good meal prepared by a caterer and served in individual rooms with all the necessary precautions, all in an “even more beautiful decoration created by the team”.
And with a mountain of gifts for hospitalized children, their siblings and parents, “thanks to our partners (Everyone against cancer, Aïda, The Great Recreation for Children) which have even more spoiled than usual“, Rejoices Céline Bernard.
Bitter Christmas in the hospital
This New Year’s Eve will have despite everything a bit bitter flavor for Mathilde. “Usually, we have family celebrations, it’s times we like. Even decorating the house and the tree, we missed it this year. It’s when we don’t have these little things that we realize we miss them, ”regrets the mother.
This year, Christmas will take place without seeing anyone, “Because of the Covid and the pathology of our daughter,” continues Mathilde.
We’re confined to confinement, in fact. For us, the days go by and look the same, we won’t necessarily differentiate between Christmas Day and the others.
Despite everything, little Amy will be spoiled with gifts. “We have everything we need! », Smiles Mathilde. “We have received a lot of packages that we will open while eating our Christmas meal at the Maison des Parents, and we will bring it to him the next day. We had lots of nice attentions for Christmas, ”she adds.
In our misfortune, there is finally this Covid effect which means that the holidays will be special for everyone, we reassure ourselves a little by telling ourselves that we are not missing much.
The hope of having Christmas at home in 2021
Little Amy is of course too young to realize this Christmas like no other. But every day since her birth, Mathilde has recorded in a diary “this progress, everything she has done, positive things, with photos. “
That way, when she is older, we can explain her illness and her entire journey to her.
Their little girl is on the road to recovery, and while Christmas is a time when we find ourselves hoping for the best, Mathilde and her partner only dream of one thing that their daughter “is doing better, that she can go out and that we live a real life in 2021 ”.
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