Some progress

Please note: Anyone who has had a premie anywhere near as early as my Robbie, please see the post below. I'd love to hear from you.



Progress continues on a few fronts. It seems that my boobs MIGHT understand what is happening after all.
After taking a firm lead in the beginning, leftie had really gotten lazy sometimes refusing to even produce enough moisture to wet the cone. Righty isn't stupid and saw her chance to break ahead and is currently winning the race by a land slide. I think the embarrassment finally got to leftie again because at my 4am pump, leftie managed to make her first drops of something that resembled milk.

It's actually pathetic how good making what is probably 1/2 tablespoon of milk can do for my attitude. Finally, SOMETHING I can do.

After riding the I-have-a-purpose wave enough to get my very sore body around to washing cones & preparing myself for the next pump session, I called down to the NICU to check in.

I'm told he's being a good baby. They've turned his oxygen down a bit, which is good and his preassures are all good. When David and I went to see him earlier, he was getting a bit of a blood transfusion. David asked his blood type and we found out that he's A+. David is AB+ and I'm O+. David seemed disappointed that he wouldn't be able to be a donor if the time came, but I told him he could always donate for another baby who needs it.

In any case, his nurse sounded very positive on the phone, which continued my high a bit.

I spoke at length with a nurse who was also the mom of a 25w premie (now more like 2yo) yesterday and she warned me not to revel too much in the highs, because every high is followed by a low. They do really well and then it wears them out, so they have to recover.

Even in his less than 2 days out in the world, I've already experienced that exact thing. We want it all to be good, good, good.. but there will always be setbacks. I guess I'm already a helicopter mother.


So I'm trying to remain calm. I'm still incredibly overwhelmed by all the things I don't know, the things I wish I didn't know, the things that no one should ever know. I've been following links to blogs from those of you commenting with insight. I'm sorry I haven't been commenting a lot, but I am reading. Did I mention that I'm overwhelmed? I am overwhelmed, and having trouble sorting through all of the stuff in my mind.

I am completely aware that David feels the same way because he sat down and made a list of things to do this week. Those of you who know us probably think that's funny. I'm scattered and lost and David is making lists, sorting, stacking, organizing.

Earlier tonight, he was cleaning up our room a bit, matching milk bottles to caps, going through the brochures & information we've accumulated and I noticed tears in his eyes. When I asked if he was okay, all he could really say was how much he loved our Robbie.

Seeing him worry for his son.. seeing him love his son.. it's all very overwhelming to me. (Yes, I intend to use "overwhelming" for everything because it's the only thing that fits.) I guess I got a little used to the idea that bad things can happen to me, but this is happening to HIM and he doesn't deserve it at all.

Not that I do, mind you, just that I sort of accepted my fate as unlucky a long time ago.

I wish I knew what to do for David. I feel like he has it even worse than me. I can do SOMEthing- I can make some food for our son. Most of the time, the nurses seem so genuinely thrilled when I hand them something, that I beam with proud. Plus I have maternity leave coming. It won't be enough, but it's something.

David will have to go back to work at some point. Not really sure when. Maybe this week, even, but that's still be worked out.

I keep trying to picture our new life now. David goes to work, I go to the hospital?

I don't know what to do here. Right now I'm still a bit wobbly on my feet, so I go down to visit when I can, but mostly focus on keeping my feet up, drinking water, planning my next pump. But in a couple of days, they're going to send us home.

They're going to send us home w/o our baby. Then what? Am I going to be overcome with the need to come right back? Do I just come and sit for 8 hours/day? Which 8 hours? Should it be 12? What do I do when I'm here? Can I just pull up a chair and sit next to him? Read a book, talk to him? I honestly just don't know. He has these teams of people working on him all the time, so what is my purpose?

I can sit in a waiting room and visit every hour? Just read in the mean time? I don't know.

We went and checked out some information for a support group tonight. Again- David is doing the organizing. Hopefully we can check that out and get some sort of idea of what good we can do and how.

Hopefully from there we can start to adjust to our new normal.

--Trish