THE VOICES OF MOTHERHOOD : Leona Murillo, ORANGE

Age 22, lives with the father and grandmother of her 14-month-old son, Alfredo Ruiz, who was born two months’ premature and spent three months in the hospital after birth. The baby continues to have health problems.

“He didn’t even look like a baby. I couldn’t take him home with me.

Every day, Jose would drop me off at (the hospital) at 6:30 a.m. and I would stay until 4 p.m. We would go home, eat dinner, take a shower and go back and stay until 9 or 10 at night. I didn’t get to look forward to being wheeled out with my baby. We didn’t get to buy him things because we didn’t know if he was going to be OK.

I cried every day I couldn’t be with him.

When the baby first came home I could see myself being selfish. I banned everybody from the house for two weeks. I had already shared with the hospital, doctor and nurses. I didn’t want to share him with anybody.

When his father would come home, I would yell at him and say you are not doing this right or that right. I became real jealous. Sometimes I don’t think he understood why I would stay up at night crying and not say anything. We went through a lot.

It started getting really hard--me needing a little help, us living by ourselves. We had no idea financially how hard it would be. It didn’t last six months. We ended up moving back home with his mom.

We were thinking about getting married before I got pregnant. When I had gotten pregnant, I didn’t feel I should get married because I was pregnant. We really decided to wait. We are still thinking about it--though we are closer now than we were then.

I still have to be here 24 hours a day with (the baby). When they are born premature, they have a lot of problems. He is still on oxygen at night. He goes to the eye doctor every three to four months.

We have to deal with the insurance, children services, I have to deal with the phone calls. I have to keep my own file like the one you see in hospital.

I had a home nurse who used to come out once a week. I feel I still don’t have the privacy I would have if I had a normal healthy baby.

Still we are dealing with it.

Just to wake up and see him this morning, to see him crawling, looking out his crib, watching for someone to pick him up. He is everything I thought he would be. We had to go through a little bit more than we expected. But I feel we will make it.

We are out of the hard times.

I would do it again. Oh yeah, I would do it again. I want more kids. At least five boys.”