When I think back to that day — the 29th week of my pregnancy — I can still feel the fear in every heartbeat. I went to the hospital because of sudden, painful contractions. I thought it would just be a check-up, that maybe I’d be sent home to rest. Instead, the doctors told me myuterus had ruptured.

In that moment, both my life and my baby’s hung by a thread. Seconds mattered. One wrong move could have meant the end for both of us.

The surgeons worked quickly, stitching me up, doing everything they could to save us. I survived. My son Rafał did too — but only barely.

He came into this world weighingjust 1390 grams, measuring 39 centimeters, and earning 1 point on the Apgar scale. I will never forget how impossibly small he looked — a fragile little body covered in tubes, fighting for every breath. I didn’t know a human being could be so tiny.

Rafał was immediately transferred to a neonatal hospital in Zabrze, where he spent almost three months in an incubator. I wasn’t allowed to hold him. I couldn’t even change his diaper. Every visit felt like a lifetime compressed into a few minutes — watching, praying, hoping.

But hope kept breaking.

Rafał suffered a grade 3 brain hemorrhage and contracted sepsis. Later, when he was finally discharged, I thought the worst was behind us. But only a week later, he was back in the hospital, this time inintensive care, fighting for his life again — this time because of pneumonia caused by RSV, a dangerous respiratory virus that preys on premature babies.

From there, everything became a blur of hospital corridors, beeping machines, and tears. Rafał was moved to pediatrics, where doctors diagnosed him withepilepsy. Then neurology. Then rehabilitation. One diagnosis after another, one heartbreak after the next.

And then came the words that changed everything:
“Your son has cerebral palsy.”

Not just that. The list was long and cruel:quadriplegia, encephalopathy, spastic muscle tone in some limbs and hypotonia in others, bronchopulmonary dysplasia — complications of extreme prematurity that scarred his little lungs forever.

Rafał can’t walk. He can’t talk. He can’t eat on his own — he’s fed through aPEG tube. He spends his days bedridden, his world limited to the view from his chair or bed.

And yet — he smiles.

One smile from him, and the world becomes bearable again. It’s the kind of smile that tells me he’s still in there — that despite everything, despite the pain and the silence, he feels love. He knows he is loved.

I cry for him often. I cry for the life he should have had — the first words, the first steps, the first day of school. But tears won’t change anything. So instead, I fight.

I know I can’t turn back time. But I can fight for the time we still have.

If we stay home, Rafał will never move forward. I will spend the rest of my life pushing a wheelchair — and I will, if that’s what it takes — but I refuse to stop trying to change his fate. He deserves more than survival. He deserves a chance at progress, however small.

That’s why rehabilitation is everything to us.

It’s our only hope. But the therapy that Rafał needs — specialized, intensive, ongoing — is expensive. What’s provided by the state isn’t nearly enough. We pay out of pocket forprivate rehabilitation sessions twice a week, using every bit of money we can save. It’s exhausting, financially and emotionally, but I would give up everything for my son to one day lift his head, say “Mama,” or take one single, unassisted step.

Because for most people, a step is just a step. But for us — it’s a miracle.

Every movement he makes, every twitch of his hand, every sound he struggles to form is a victory. It’s a long road — a marathon, not a sprint. But we can’t do it alone anymore.

That’s why I’m asking — humbly, desperately — for help.

Every donation, every act of kindness, every shared word of encouragement brings us closer to another day of therapy, another chance at improvement, another reason to hope.

Maybe one day Rafał will be able to thank you himself — with his voice, his words, his own movement.

Until then, I’ll thank you for him — from the depths of a mother’s heart that refuses to stop believing. 💛

Please help us keep fighting — for Rafał’s future, for his smile, for the small miracles that still lie ahead.