So I’m going to interrupt the telling of my sons story to share something that I have written for my son and everyone that worked with him in the NICU and out of the NICU over the past year. It’s hard believe he is here and he has reached the age of 1 (8 1/2 months adjusted). It’s a long poem but his story has not been short and every bit of it has gotten him here to this day. Happy Birthday little man and thank you to everyone that has helped us get to this point!
marchofdimes
A MicroPreemie Story: The Honey Moon Phase
After the dust had settled from the day of Beckham’s birth reality began to sit in. We started reading up vigorously about micro preemies, percentages, what to expect, other peoples stories and more. Regardless of the percentages as I read other moms stories of their micro preemies I began to feel a bit of relief and maybe even an ounce of hope. Stories of people that we knew flooded in. People that were preemies, or knew someone with a preemie that had survived and was doing fine. All of this time we didn’t know any of these stories about our friends or their friends and relatives and now we were learning so much about them. The hospital had a library where I found a few books on prematurity and what to expect as well as real stories from the NICU. As we read through these stories we found the majority of them the babies had 1 or 2 issues and then were fine. It was reassuring and I hoped this would be the case for us.
A MicroPreemie Story: Day 0.1
In the NICU there is no future, there is only present. It’s important for parents to adjust to this mindset of not being able to plan for their baby’s milestones or going home date because it will only lead to more and more disappointment. Easier said than done. As a project manager this was one of the toughest adjustments for me being in the NICU. I am a person that likes complete organization, to have things planned out and if anything changes all hell breaks loose. How can I not think about my baby’s future? Honestly, a tough adjustment mentally but emotionally it was easy. If I began to think about what the future held for my baby I would just start crying, so essentially it required me to create a mental block and focus on the now.
TheDiaryofaSickGirl 