When did we break out?
After 5 days.
At around 7 months we had our NICU tour. All I remember from it was thinking about how awful it was going to be. How all of the babies looked so fragile and sickly. How all of the parents looked heart-broken and drained. I made it out to the parking lot before the tears came. Between the pregnancy horomones and just the fact we never imagined having a baby that needed to be in the NICU at all; it was very overwhelming.
But instead, Noah went back to the NICU after his back surgery just like we planned. PLANNED- Ahh. Such a comforting word to me. Which makes me wonder if we wouldn't have known he'd be in the NICU if things would have been drastically harder? Hmm. Anyway, Steven wheeled me down to see him and my heart fluttered with immense joy. I couldn't wait to see him again. I was so doped up from morphine and pain killers from my surgery I honestly didn't even worry about his back surgery or the fact that anything could go wrong. I mean.. the child just learned how to breathe! And he's going to go under anesthetic and have a major surgery? Maybe it was a good thing I was so drugged...
Still barely mobile they placed Noah in my arms. I just remember looking at him and wondering if he was really ours. Being a new parent is such a bizzare feeling. You know that you carried this baby for nine months, you felt it move, saw it on ultrasound, but once it's here it's like... "Wow what? Where did you come from?" I had a hard time connecting that my huge belly meant that there was a REAL baby in there!
The nurses called our NICU nurse to have us leave and come back to our room so I could take more pain medicine and I was OUT. Hence the very short, sweet "Noah is here" blog post. I was so tired and happy. We all were. Steven would take me down to the NICU and we'd be all smiles. Excited and ready to see Noah and look around to see nothing but those heartbroken, drained parents. They must have thought we were absolutely crazy. But even though this was their worst case scenario... this was our best and we were enjoying every single second.
I then started pumping for the first time. I wanted Noah to get all of the nutrients from me that he could. Especially at first. I was so excited to breast feed and knew based on our circumstances my first experience would be with a pump. It honestly wasn't bad.. it took a few days for my colostrum to come in but I was just glad that I had the chance to pump and give it to him. We soon tried breast feeding and Noah had trouble latching on... we were both learning the best that we could and finally got everything going right. Soon he was just nursing and didn't need any supplmenting at all. Definite proud Mommy moment.
His vitals all remained stable, his head ultrasound (monitoring his fluid) remained stable and we were in heaven.
After work Steven would come by the hospital and visit with Noah. His love for him was apparent at an early time too. I'm very thankful for that.
We spent a night in a care by parent room. Which was HOT, DEPRESSING and MISERABLE. If it wasn't for the fact that I actually got to take care of Noah for the first time I would have just said no and went home. Okay maybe I'm being completely over dramatic... but gosh. Imagine a hotel room with 90's furniture and decor, a small vintage tv with 3 channels, no windows and a creepy old bathroom. Noah and I laid together and nursed all evening. I loved looking at him. Just getting to stare all I wanted and take in everything about him. Not once did I think about him moving his legs. It didn't matter. He and I were alone together and that's all I wanted at the time.
The next day we went home.
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