Sorry it's been a few days..

.. but I had good reason. On Sunday, August 21st .. a month before his September 21st due date, Milo Spencer came home to his family!!

We got to room in with him the Saturday night before. It was like being in a hotel but so much better since we got to be with our son. It felt like the culmination of a very LONG 45 days in the NICU. It was a moment that I had dreamed about but never thought would happen on some days. I am beyond over the moon to FINALLY be the 'new mom' with the baby at home. Despite sleep deprivation, I am so glad to be taking care of my little man. It's an adjustment .. as is a new baby always is.

He will be keeping me busy. We've already had a WIC appointment (twice, since he needed a special formula to go with my breast milk supplement) & a pediatrician appointment. His real pediatrician wasn't there so we are scheduled again this coming Monday to have her meet him. But the doctor we talked to said he is doing wonderfully & despite some feeding issues associated with his prematurity .. he gained 5oz since he had come home at that point. :) Over the next few months he has to see an eye doctor for his immature retinas (common in preemies), the cardiologist (to keep an eye on his barely borderline coarctation) & the genetics doctor to one strange vertebrae that doesn't seem to be affecting him much. He is very wiggly.

That's all for today. I have a few topics I want to write about in the next few posts. I am going to strive to find a few moments to type up a post every other day or every two days at least. I have a LOT to say.

Coming up in future posts:

• Mourning the loss of your pregnancy experience, birth experience & so on when you have a preemie or have a child in the NICU.
• The evils of Facebook in relationships.
  
• Why I chose to have a Welcome Home Party instead of a Baby Shower (even before I had my son!)
  

A Happy Holmes-coming

Notice the title says "Holmes-coming" & not homecoming. Because Milo isn't going home yet, but he WAS transferred back to our local hospital, Holmes Regional. This is a big step! His cardiologist cleared him to be closer to us now. This hospital is only 15 minutes away compared to the 60-90 minutes it took to get to Winnie Palmer. Don't get me wrong, Winnie Palmer is an amazing hospital & my experience there was nothing short of wonderful. The staff, nurses, doctors.. even the parking attendants, made us feel warmly welcomed & comfortable. I plan on making sure they are the first NICU unit that receives help from "Dragonflies & Rainbows".

Oh wait, you didn't know about that. I want to make care packages for NICU families (both with babies in the NICU & also bereaved families who lose their babies in the NICU) & I have started a Facebook page for the idea. I have lots of ideas & I am hoping to get some donations of certain items. It might just start out as me doing it, but that's okay. I will be happy if I help just one family to ease their NICU experience. This is a small idea right now, but I hope to expand it one day. Maybe even get donations from businesses & companies. If you are interested in the FB page here is the link: Dragonflies & Rainbows: Care Packages for NICU Families. I am already working on it's logo: well, I doodled it while listening to my voicemail, but it's a start.

Right now I'm focusing on preparing the house for Milo. My last couple weeks of pregnancy I had a hard time moving around, & then of course.. I was very sore & tired after having Milo. I am getting to the point where I can physically do things again. So I am focused on getting the house organized, getting rid of some stuff we don't need to make room for baby things & get Milo's area set up. It's exciting for me. I am so glad to be at a point where I can do this & not worry about whether or not he is going home... he WILL be coming home. It's just a matter of when! So I don't want to be caught off guard.. I want to be ready. I was already caught off guard by having him at 29 weeks. My birth was not what I had hoped for. I am still emotionally dealing with the loss of "normalcy" & I might talk about that later, but I am trying to positive right now. We will be seeing Milo later. I am stuck here at home as I can't bring my daughter to the NICU & Daddy is at work.

We are getting there. That's all that matters. Milo looked wonderful last night. 5lbs, 11.3oz, Sp02 looked great.. still doing some tube feeding, but hopefully he'll be on a bottle completely soon. I can't wait to have my little boy home. But I CAN wait too... 'til he is healthy & strong.

Ups & Downs

I am going through so many ups & downs. & not even because Milo is doing badly or anything. In fact, he is doing well. Still cruising. No new orders from the doctors which means to me that he isn't doing worse. He went a few days without any apnea/brady spells & that is awesome. I guess he had one today that they had to stimulate him a bit. I want to be happy that he went days without one but my mind goes into immediate worry mode because he had one that was a bit worse than some of the others. I do my best to tell myself: preemies do this! But how often do we really listen to ourselves? I know that I've always had issues with listening to that still small voice & instead listening to the big booming one that screams worst case scenarios in my head. I really need to stop listening to the voices all together.

I suppose my biggest deal is that I have no focal point for Milo's homecoming. Yes, he makes great progress. Gaining weight (5lbs, 10oz today!) & up to 3 bottle feedings per day. He has his up days & down days, just like I do. But there is no light on the horizon that I can set a course to. I am just wandering around blindly at this point. Do I believe I am taking home my alive, relatively healthy baby? Yes, eventually. Does it feel like I ever will? Not at the moment. It feels like it will never happen.

I think too much. That's the problem. I have this energy that was there after giving birth .. to care for a baby. I don't get to do a lot of that yet. So this energy is just consuming me. I'm trying to find things to do. The blogging helps. I am working on several projects that I will be talking about soon. But I still like a new mommy with no baby & it makes me feel so useless! I organize Milo's drawer under his bed whenever I visit him. I take home dirty clothes & bring hi fresh & clean ones. I want to feel like he belongs to me... he doesn't yet. & that's all I really want. I know it will happen when it is supposed to. I just need to focus on getting out of the NICU because honestly... the NICU itself is a HUGE trigger for my anxiety, my grief, my stress. My last baby never left it.. I want to be positive about this time around. But I am experiencing a new type of grief: the loss of my hopes for a normal pregnancy, normal birth, full-term baby... it was ripped from me. & it's a REAL loss. & I am definitely mourning it.

The ups & downs are driving me crazy.

Minor Setbacks

Milo had a few setbacks today. He got put back in his nasal cannula & on caffeine again due to increased apnea/brady spells. He is a preemie so I KNOW, rationally, that this is something that will happen during his time in the NICU. But sometimes being a mother is anything but rational thinking. You feel everything. Your heart & soul is invested into this little baby you made. These setbacks, however minor, hit me so hard.

I was holding him as he had his feeding. He is up to 38cc's every three hours now. That's amazing, but it felt like near the end of his feeding.. no matter what angle I held him, he would drop his sats. His monitor went off several times. He had a brady spell as well. Perhaps the disappointment of walking in & seeing the cannula back on was what set the tone. Quickly I became unable to handle the beeps & alarms in the whole room. Every time I heard one my heart would skip a beat & my head would immediately whip to look at his monitor. Every time his sats dropped down or caused an alarm.. my heart would sink. In the end, after feeding him, I had to put him back into his little plastic crib (he doesn't need help regulating his heat, which is good..), kissed him goodnight, told him I loved him & I had to get the hell out of there. I found myself nearly losing it in the bathroom. I felt overwhelmed & overstimulated. Part of me felt like I really needed a break from being there. I know that might seem horrible. But to have to walk into a unit like that & see your child there. To feel like he's not even yours yet. When a nurse says, "You want to change his diaper?" .. part of me wants to look at them like they have three heads & say, "Am I allowed?"

Of course I am. I am his MOTHER. I gave birth to him. He is MY son.

But it doesn't feel like that yet. You know, moments before I went into the unit, I was scrubbing up & confidently talking to his Daddy about how I was sure that he would be transferred back to Holmes. The night before I felt comfortable enough to fold his freshly laundered baby clothes & put them away in his drawer. I talked about how I wanted to get the crib put together & fix up his room & build the rocking chair my dad bought us for Dexter. How I wanted to get the ton of newborn diapers I received all set up on his changing table. Immediately as I was leaving the unit tonight, I felt a sense of dread. Of feeling like I jinxed it. That I become too comfortable with envisioning leaving the hospital with a baby eventually. I had that vision while pregnant. It didn't happen. I am desperately holding onto being positive. I know that these setbacks aren't major. I feel kind of dumb to even be worrying to this level, but unless you have also experienced a loss like we did with Dexter.. then you can't even begin to understand the worries I have within me. We just want to be happy & have our family.

& we will. I know we will. I know it. & once I have him in my arms being taken home.. I'll believe it.

A bright side note: He gained 40 grams since the last time he was weighed. He was 1965 grams. Which puts him over his birth weight (4 lbs, 4 oz) at 4 lbs, 5.31 oz. <3