Hard Day

Today was a hard day. Munchkin had a fabulous day and that definitely helps (read about him at the link on the left of my page) but I still had a down day. Sometimes I'm happy and joking and laughing; sometimes I'm sad and low and crying. A lot of times both of those can happen within the same hour.

The drives to the NICU are hard and I'm not sure why. I cry almost every day as I drive there to see my son. It's not always necesarily crying for Munchkin, just crying for the enormity of all that I've been through and continue to go through. It seems like every day is a different thing I'm going through.

Today, I miss my grandfather and I'm reliving the terror of the night I was admitted to the hospital. I tried sleeping last night but I felt like I couldn't breathe. My mind kept reliving the 36 hours before I was admitted and I could literally feel those hours; the liver pain that we mistook for reflux, the long, agonizing drive to the hospital filled with pain, the fact we were being admitted and the frightening fact that my pregnancy was rapidly coming to an end 10 weeks early.

And I miss my grandfather terribly. Mentally he's been gone for many years but that doesn't mean his death was any easier to take. I can't imagine this world without my amazing grandfather. I didn't want Munchkin to never know his great-grandfather's laugh and his mischevious smile. Munchkin has that smile and when he randomly smiles in his isolette I imagine my grandfather whispering jokes to him. They have their own inside jokes I think.

Munchkin is doing amazing today. He had a rough few days with his breathing and his events but they found some fluid in his lungs, got rid of it and now he's doing great. He's breathing much better even than before and having very few events. His brain is starting to develop much more and he's getting bigger every day. When he does well it makes me feel so much better.

But I can't shake everything that has happened. I think in light of all that happened all at the same time, I'm handling things quite well. I just can't escape the things that happened and the trauma I went through. I have a grieving process that never got to take place for my grandfather but also for other things. I need to know how to grieve the end of my pregnancy being taken away; I need to grieve the "normal" event labor should've been and the joyous event it usually is and the fact we got neither of those.

Seeing other moms leave the hospital with their babies 2 days after they had them is hard. It seems almost every time I go to the hospital there is a mom and a dad with goofy grins on their faces going home with their brand new baby. Me on the other hand, I'm on my way in to see my son who has been there for 5 weeks and counting. I know I will get my day when Munchkin comes home and it'll be one of the best days ever but I had to work for it a hell of a lot harder than most people. I will be one of those goofy grinned people soon but in the meantime it's hard to watch those other new parents go home with no idea how much it hurts to watch them be oblivious to any other outcome.