Break another little peice of my heart...

So it's day 11 after delivery and my baby girl is still in the NICU... Every day is torture without her. No new mother should be expected to have to deal with having a baby and then having to go home without her. I miss her being with me, inside my belly, where I can talk to her and feel her little kicks. She was with me for the last 8 months and now she isn't! If I make it through this with my sanity it will be a miracle. And poor Jason... He has gotten so used to me crying out of the blue that he doesn't even ask what's wrong anymore. He just hugs me and assures me she'll be home soon.

I have been going to spend the days with her while Jason is at work. It's my new "job". I pack my bag with books and my pumping equipment and drop Jase off at work every morning at 7:30 and then it's off to the NICU. I sit with her and hold her and read out loud to her and every 3 hours I attempt to feed her. We have been working on nursing and she's great at it! Latched on right away on our first attempt. The doctor's tell us she has gained weight and is up to 5lbs 8oz which is wonderful and they have increased the amount of breast milk she gets per feeding. However, she won't be able to go home until she can take all of her feeds by mouth. She is now taking a little over half by bottle or breast but each time we have to finish up with the feeding tube. I am determined to get her home soon so we'll have to keep working hard.

So I mentioned in a previous post about our little scare. Well apparently preemies are prone to Apnea (where they forget to breath) and Bradycardia (aka Brady, where their heartrates drop below 100 for 15 seconds or more). These A & Bs usually happen together or cause each other. While I was nursing her on our second attempt, with no assistance this time, she had an episode. The alarms went off on her monitor and I looked at her and saw she was actually turning blue and seemed very non-responsive. I was terrified and kind of rubbed her and shook her (not hard of course) and she snapped out of it. The nurses and doctor's say that this is common in preterm babies and she'll "grow out of it". When??? So I was afraid to hold her or attempt nursing again for the rest of the day. And when I do, I can't take my eyes off her monitors!

The next day I had the lactation consultants come work with me and show me how to best breastfeed using the football hold. This way I could be more in control of her neck and head to assure she has an open airway and can breath. The doctor's came and told me not to worry about the A & B spell and that she will snap out on her own but that when it happens to rub her back or bottom till she does. They say they aren't worried about this and that the only thing keeping her in the NICU is her feeding. So now I am again terrified of what will happen when we do get to bring her home. What if these spells continue? How will I know if she's breathing when she's home with the monitors? How will I sleep or ever be able to walk away from her when I put her down? I am trying to train myself now when I hold her/feed her not to watch the monitors at all because I won't be able to when she's home but it's so difficult!

And it so exhausting to have a baby in the NICU that we are both physically and mentally wore out. I just gave birth and am supposed to be taking it easy, but I haven't since they let me out of the hospital. I was feeling so ill and feverish and concerned about my heavy bleeding Tuesday that I went to see my OB. She said I was showing signs of anemia and yelled at me for not taking time to fill my prescription for my Iron supplement they gave me in the hospital. She also yelled at me for all the walking and stressing and told me I was just overdoing it. She did an internal exam and my stitches were fine, my cervix was fine and my uterus was contracting and returning to normal. No physical abnormalities were causing my extra bleeding, just me not taking it easy. So I filled my prescription and took the next day "off" from the NICU. My mom went and spent the day with her instead but I felt so guilty that I didn't get any rest and several times almost got dressed and drove to the hospital.

It's taking its toll on Jason too. I woke up one morning to pump at 4am and was so out of it, I didn't even notice he wasn't in bed with me. I started a pot of coffee while I was getting my pumping equipment ready and he snuck up on me from the basement. He had been down there all night, unable to sleep, and due at work in 4 hours. He said he couldn't sleep and was going to just stay up till time to go to work. After pumping, I laid back down and he was going to wake me at 5:30. Well, at 6 I woke up and realized I had overslept and the house was silent. I went to the basement and there he was, asleep in his computer chair with a video clip of Bri sleeping playing in a loop on his pc. It was the sweetest image I had ever seen.

Yesterday, the little baby next to Bri was released. When her parents came to get her, we told them congratulations and as soon as they left, I wept. I guess I was jealous that they were getting to take their little one home with them while ours was still there for who knows how long...