When you're pregnant, you're in a constant state of preparation. Being the mommy of a NICU baby is not something you think to prepare for. It just happens to you and you go into the situation with no knowledge. Truth be told, I wasn't even prepared to give birth. I remember when they sent the first specialist in to see me he mentioned delivery and I stopped him and said "But I don't even know how to be in labor, I haven't gotten to that part of my baby book yet."
So I really wasn't prepared for the swing of hormones I was going to have after birth. Compounded with the emotions I feel about the fact that my daughter is in the neonatal intensive care unit makes me feel completely out of control. People keep telling me I'm handling this so well but on the inside I feel like I'm falling apart.
The night before last Jeff made me talk on the phone to some of my friends. He's been talking to everyone for me because I couldn't talk to anybody, didn't want to talk to anybody, didn't want to have to answer questions about my baby. He forced the issue because he said it was worrying him. I lasted four minutes and twenty three seconds before I burst into tears and hung up.
I'm set off by the strangest things. One night in the hospital, the nurse and a nursing student came by to give me a flu shot. I had been waiting until I was 28 weeks pregnant to get it, because I have very bad reactions to most vaccinations and I'd read that can cause pre-term labor. So she started to give me the shot and I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying. It was so scarring for me, the fact that it didn't matter if I had the shot, that she had come early despite my best efforts to protect her. Those nurses probably thought I was crazy, one of them kept saying "It's not going to hurt, I promise" and I couldn't even talk to tell her nothing physical could possibly ever hurt me again.
I prolonged showering until the nurses forced it on me. I didn't want to see my body or my scar. The absence of my baby belly and the incision just remind me that she's not safe inside me anymore. My mother had to bathe me, not because I was in pain but because I couldn't bear to touch where she'd been and not feel her there.
Yesterday my mom took me to lunch after we visited Scarlette. It was my first time seeing Scarlette have a rough day and I couldn't handle it. Halfway through lunch a family with a new baby was seated next to us and they put her chair right next to my booth. I had to leave. I cried and cried in the middle of Ippolitos while we abandoned our meal.
I am so grateful that my daughter's condition is as good as it is. I am grateful that so far she has had more good days than bad days. I am grateful that she has lived one whole week and changed my life completely. I am grateful that she has the best possible care right now. But I am heartbroken that my daughter has to work so hard to just live. That she doesn't have it easy. That I fall asleep at night so far from her.
I feel a little bit lost.
"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there." 1 Sam 1:27-29
