The journey of my 29 weeker, part 2.....

November 11, 2007, Veterans Day at 4:24pm, Bitty came into the world weighing in at a whopping 2lbs. 15oz. At sixteen and a quarter inches long, she looked like a doll baby. An alien looking doll baby, but nontheless, a doll baby.

Like i said before, my memory gets kinda fuzzy right after her birth and i'm really not sure when the first time i got to see her actually happened. I know my husband had seen her first. It wasn't long after i was in my room that i remember a nurse comming in with a breast pump and explaining to me how to use it. Somewhere along the line i had remembered being told how important breast milk is for preemies, and in an instant had made up my mind that my daughter would have NOTHING but breast milk, at any cost. So, feeling like a cow at a dairy farm, i attached myself to the pump. Much to my surprise, it felt good, relaxing. And so began a regimin of pumping every two to three hours.

I think i was finally able to see her the next day. The NICU seemed so far away from my room, but then again, i think right across the hall would've felt too far. I was wheeled down by a very nice nurse, i think. LOL When we arrived, she explained the regimin of hand washing followed by hand sanitizer, she then wheeled me to the "pod" my daughter was in. Nothing, and i mean nothing, can prepare you for what a premature baby looks like. But, i'm not sure i even saw that. I saw my daughter. And then, my heart broke. "What did i do?" i thought. The guilt that hit me, well, there are no words for it. I was only with her about 5 mins. before i was pretty much made to leave. "You don't look so good." Is what i was told. So, the kind nurse wheeled me back to my room.

Reality was starting to set in. My daughter could die. She could have life long problems. There's so much grey area with preemies, and even though the doctors and nurses try their best to be positive, they don't hide the facts. I was told what percentage she had of surviving and that with everyday she made, her percentage would increase. We were told the medications she was given. The one that sticks with me the most is caffine. I remember being so.....confused about that one. But, it was to help keep her heart beating. "Load her up!" i thought.

Time stands still in the world of a NICU parent. There's no night and day. There's no supper time or breakfast time. There's only the here and now. There isn't 5 mins. from now, because well, 5 mins. from now, you might be watching your child flat line. Two minutes from now, someone else is holding their baby as they are slipping away. So, there is only here and now. That's the way it has to be. Death is everywhere in a NICU. Hiding behind corners and inside cabnets. So much so, that somedays you can almost smell it. But, where death lingers, life thrives. It's the only place, i believe, that you truely see the delicate balance between life and death. While one mother is hooking her baby into a carseat, preparing to go home, another is crying because she is leaving her child behind to make funeral arrangements. There's comfort that lies in the four walls of a NICU that only someone on the inside of them can understand. Everone in there is focused soley on one thing, and it bonds us all together. It's safety in numbers. It might be a false sense of security, but it feels safe and that's all that matters. No one judges anyone. But, silently, everyone blames themselves.

For four days, i have a solid routine. I have a comforting balance. I pump every 2 hours and take it to the NICU, change my daughter's diaper - which is the only contact we can have for sometime, so injoy every diaper i can get. Her nurse and i discuss the events that have unfolded while i was gone. And just when all seems quiet, her alarm goes off. "Oh, she forgot to breath." her nurse says calmly, like it's nothing. I freaked out everytime. How can you not. When you can physically see that your child has stopped breathing or their heart has stopped beating, it makes you forget to breath, it makes your heart stop. But, calmly her nurse opens her isolet rubs Bitty firmly, and i watch, amazed. The alarm goes off. It something you NEVER get used to. You may learn to drowned out the other preemie's alarms, but you will ALWAYS hear yours. For four days, my life hangs on the balance along with my daughter's. I knew, one day, i'd have to go home and leave her behind, but it was still a shock when it came. No one prepares you for that either. How can they.

I don't think reality really sank in until the day i was discharged. Up until that point, i felt great comfort in knowing that if my daughter needed me, i was right there. If her life was gonna end, i could hold her hand. If, in the middle of the night i felt she needed me, i could be there. For some reason, i always imagined that at night, she would need me more so that's when i spent the most time there, in the NICU. And it would soon prevail that my nights at home would be the hardest.

I was relieved to be home, in a way. I had the comfort of my bed, my food, something that was constant and familiar. But, there i was, i had had a baby, but she wasn't with me.  And suddenly, i hated myself. Worse yet, i blamed myself. I was home. But why didn't it feel like it? I felt more at home in the hospital. After all, that's where my baby was, wasn't i supposed to be with HER. Even though my routine at home was all but the same as it was in the hospital, there was one vast differance. My baby wasn't there. I had to wait to go see her. Wait until someone had time to take me. Time stopped in the hospital, but life was still going on here. People had jobs, they had live's that didn't revolve around hospital trips and breast milk. My guilt would soon grow and consume just about every aspect of my life.

Long days had grown into even longer weeks of constant running back and forth to the hospital, with just about every cent we had going into either the gas tank or eating hospital food. To hell with our house bills, our daughter could die and we had to be there. That theory would and up ultimately bitting us in the ass a little over a year later when we were forced to sell our home. We seemingly forgot that we had other family members and when the holidays rolled around, we were only there long enough to eat before we would leave. B.J., Lorri, Megan,, and the rest of the NICU nurses were our family now. My days and nights litterally revolved around breast milk. With a regimin of pumping about every two hours, it doesn't leave much time for anything else. I needed to make sure that i had enough breast milk stored, just incase. And believe me, i did. LOL After a few weeks, i couldn't take it anymore. My guilt had got the best of me. In the midst of breast pumping, i just started sobbing. I shouted to my husband that "this isn't what i signed up for!" I didn't want to do it anymore. I wanted to be done. I couldn't believe what i had done to my daughter, i blamed myself in everyway possible. At one point, i even said aloud that i hoped she did pass away. With no one being able to say if she was gonna have lasting complications, her future, our future, was completely unknown. I didn't want her to have to suffer a life of pain because my body was incompitant and couldn't carry her to term. There was no longer a light at the end of the tunnel. I cried more than i didn't. I thank God for my husband on those dark nights, although my light had gone out, his didn't. And if it did, he didn't let me see. They say having kids is the most stressful thing on a marriage. I say, having a premature baby is. If you can make it through that, you will make through anything. Though we lost sight of so much durring the 48 days she spent in the hospital, we never lost sight in ourselves. We were in it, together. Come hell or high water.