NICU tour

Bedrest Chronicles Day 36

Quite unexpectedly, a woman showed up around lunch time to give me my tour of the NICU which I requested when I first arrived at the hospital.

Early on during my hospital stay, I searched for images of 27 week babies to prepare for what Baby E would look like if I had to deliver. I would follow this up with searching for information on what typical problems could happen during each gestational period as well. But for once, I did not obsess about each catastrophe that could happen. Instead, I just tucked the information neatly into a corner of my brain and did not pull it out. Each time a milestone would be passed, I would repeat this just to know what we would be up against.

Most of my thoughts have been directed towards what is happening in the present. This is not typical behavior for me as I'm always thinking towards the future and seemingly waiting for it to unfold. However infertility has changed me in this way, as I'm finally learning how to balance being in the present with my love of looking towards what is coming next. This stay in the hospital has been a very timely exercise in truly getting through each day as it comes. I can't make plans because I have absolutely no control over what happens next! So instead I pass my time from moment to moment, doing whatever strikes my fancy (within reach of course!).

Within this little cocoon of my hospital room, somewhere along the way I have started thinking of baby E making it until 37 weeks which essentially is full term.  This is shocking after everything that has happened over the past month, but quite frankly, also within reach. If I continue on the way I have been going with little to no contractions and baby E keeps plugging away at growing, we could make it to 37 weeks.

As the days have passed by in a foggy haze of making it through each day, this hope of a full term baby has become much more real to me than what I saw today in the NICU. Today it scared the crap out of me thinking of my kiddo in there. Being wheeled through the rooms at this point brought to mind what really could have happened. Maybe I was just blocking out the reality that we could have fallen on the wrong side of the statistics again. He could have died.

Instead of thinking of the fact that baby E hopefully will need little intervention at this point in my pregnancy, I'm kind of turned around looking at what could have happened. Now my stomach is churning and my hands are shaking. Was I just trying to escape reality in tucking everything away? Am I delusional in trying to take things pragmatically moment to moment?

xoxo