NICU #2

The moment Sophia was born everything in my life changed, I knew that it would but I never expected it to change this much. Its the best change that has ever happened to me, but it is also the hardest and most stressful thing I have ever experienced. 

Motherhood such a blessing and I am so thankful for this amazing journey that I get to experience. Breon is such a proud daddy, he comes home and wants to hold her all night. He loves to make her smile, and he wont admit this but her likes to get her dressed up and is so proud of his mix matched outfits! We are such nervous and sleep derived new parents, but we wouldn't change a thing about our live.

When Sophia was in the NICU it was really difficult, and probably one of the hardest experiences I have ever been through. Giving birth was hard and tiring but at the end all i wanted to do was to hold my baby girl, I held her for a few short minutes and then it felt like they had to rip her out of my arms.

I had this amazing idea in my head of how everything was going to be, how the last month of pregnancy was going to be, rushing to the hospital because I was having contractions or my water broke. I was excited to see Breon rush to the hospital, to give our baby her very first bath, and most of all to be wheeled out to our car with balloons and Breon carrying our baby, you know what you see in movies and commercials of the perfect image of new parents leaving the hospital. I know that Heavenly Father has reasons for why things happened the way they did, but during those 2 weeks I was upset that Heavenly Father would allow my baby girl to go through all that she did. 

I don't think I have been at physically and emotionally drained as I was those 2 weeks, Breon and I lived at the hopital. I would try to be there for every one of her feedings during the day, I would get there at 8am hold her for an hour and then come back at 11am, 2, 5 and 8pm that made for some really long days. I would walk into the NICU and not even see her yet and I would start to cry, I would hold her and I would cry, the nurses and Doctors would tell us something good or bad and I would cry, we would have to put her down and kiss her goodbye for the day and I would cry, we would drive home and I would cry.

The NICU sucked, but I know now that it was the best for her. Because she was early she missed out developing the suck, swallow and breath. There were a couple of times when we were feeding her that she would forget to breath while she was sucking her bottle, we didn't know she wasn't breathing because she was still sucking until her monitors started beeping and the nurses rushed over. That was so scary!! I didn't want to feed anymore after that, because I was so worried that I would do something wrong. I learned to get over that pretty quickly but I will tell you that I watched her monitors so closely after that.

As a new mom all I felt my job was, was to keep her safe and to take care of her. As of right now we don't know why I went into labor so early, but I was mad at myself for not noticing that I was in labor and that I couldn't keep her from coming. I should have known and if I knew I would have done anything to stop her from coming, I let her down and because I couldn't keep her safe she spent her first 2 weeks of life in a hospital bed instead of in my arms in our home. I know that there was nothing I could have done but I was really mad at myself for not taking care of her. As I said earlier I know that Heavenly Father has a reasons for her coming early, and I wouldn't change a thing, I just hope to never have to go through that again.

This trial was the hardest one I have ever had, I have become stronger as a woman and an extremely protective mother. I am so thankful for my AMAZING husband that still loves me, even with my out of whack emotions and me being overly protective. I am so blessed to have a healthy baby, that surprised everyone with how well she did for being so early. I love my little family, and blessing they are to me.

I want to thank our families and the love they have shown us through this new chapter of our lives.

A huge THANK YOU to all the NICU nurses and Doctors that took care of little girl, and helping me know that our little girl was in the best of care while she was there. I loved every one in there, they were all the sweetest people and they helped me better having to leave her every time.

 Proud Daddy

 This is how Sophia plays games with daddy! haha 

We would straighten her up but she would just go right back to this!

.She was so tiny when we got home, we couldn't help but take a picture!

NICU

Many of you may already know that Sophia spent some time in the NICU 

after she was born. It was really rough and I didn't want to post a lot about it because is was a stressful and personal time in our lives. Now that she is home and doing really good, I thought that I would write down our experience.

For all those pregnant women out there hoping that their baby comes early... I hope that baby stays put until the due date. I hope that no one has to go through having a baby in the NICU.

       Sophia was born 12/23 and she was six weeks early, after she was born we

 got to hold her for about 10 minutes and then they rushed her off to the NICU. When I was being wheeled into the recovery room they wheeled me through the NICU so I could see her again, it was great and at the same time not so great. It was not something I was really ready for to see her connected to all these 

monitors, and have an IV in her.

Lucky she didn't need any help breathing, she was doing that all on her own!

                         I couldn't walk the rest of the night so I didn't see her again until the morning. In the morning we had plans to go see her when we woke up, but by then the NICU put her on an eating schedule and asked us to please wait until her next feeding at 11am. It was difficult not to be able to go see our baby girl when ever we wanted.

 They have what they call "Cluster Care" they did it every 3 hours and its when they would feed, change, and hold the babies. Sophia's schedule was 8, 11, 2, 5 and so on. They recommend that we come at those times to hold and feed her.

                       When we went in to see her, she had an IV in her head and was under a heat lamp, and had wires all over the place. It was really difficult to hold her without feeling like we were pulling on wires and hurting her. We were able to feed her and hold her for an hour and than we had to say good-bye for and couple of hours. 

I can't not tell you how miserable it was to see our baby hooked up, I think about it and I still cry. 

The next 2 weeks where the most emotionally draining weeks of my life so far. I would call the NICU all the time and ask how she was doing, how much she eat before they had to put it in the tube that was in her nose. 

Seeing her while we were still in the hospital was hard but it was easy because we were still there and she was just a walk down the hall. 

I got discharged Christmas day and that was one of the hardest days of my life, I had her with my for 8 months and there is nothing like finally having her in my arms, and then having to put her down and leave her. I went to the hospital with her, and I left without her. This is not what I had planned, I didn't have time to prepare myself for how hard this experience would be.

Sorry I will have to finish this another time, Sophia is hungry!