Grateful (long)

I am a looong time lurker of TB message boards (like well over a year...even before I was TTC) and decided to finally post under a new SN. I feel like the Preemie board is a particularly helpful and supportive one, at least it has been for me during my journey with my baby born at 32 weeks.

Anyways, I just wanted to put out there some of my thoughts, and while friends nod their heads and say they feel for me, I truly don't think anyone really understands the process, emotions, and finally victory of having a premature baby unless you have been there yourself. Hence why I have quietly lurked-and benefited from- this board for months. 

At first I felt very "robbed" of my idealic vision of giving birth. I literally mourned the loss of the last 2 months of my pregnancy I would never experience, the plan in my head that my water would break at 40 weeks and I would have a chubby pink baby to take home with my husband and me 2 days later. I obsessively sat by his isolette and had a lump in my throat for 3 solid weeks just hoping and appealing to any higher being there may be to please let him come through healthy and thriving. I will never forget my time in the NICU surrounded by the beeping monitors, the dim lights and the bustling nurses...subjecting each one to 1,000 questions a day and being so thankful to be allowed to aid in a simple task like take his temperature or change his diaper. Dear god when they told us to prepare him for his car seat test you would have thought we had won the lottery.

Anyways, I also remember asking my husband to keep reminding me that someday soon we would be here at home with our baby boy sleeping in his crib like "normal"...that we would have a routine that did not include driving 2 towns away to the hospital to see our son, not having to mind the wires and tubes while holding him, and not having to pick up to phone to check in on him as opposed to walking down our hallway.

But here we sit and in his crib he lies and I am grateful. I am grateful for every time I sit bleary eyed at 3 am feeding him, every spit up, every dirty diaper. Every smile, tear, laugh. Having a preemie at first feels like being dealt a very tough hand, but in the end it has taught me not to take anything for granted, never complain, and to not miss one moment.

Thanks for reading.