Day 17

Everything still feels new.  Typically 17 days is pretty long... in this case, doesn't seem long at all.  I guess that's because we're still facing more than 100 more days (that's me looking at the big picture, which I'm not supposed to do, I can see why).

Had the morning with Sadie and my mom, Ryan visit late afternoon/evening.  Ryan's doing well.  He had a busy day of a head ultrasound and ECG.  These will be regular occurrences but he's not a huge fan.  He tends to 'swing' a lot after so much handling.  (That means his oxygen level goes up and down so the nurses have to change his settings pretty frequently).

We went to our first "parent meeting" tonight. During shift change on Tuesdays they have weekly discussions for parents of kids in the NICU.  Tonight's topic was "coping with your child's hospitalization".  Yes please, teach me how to cope.  Unfortunately, with many 'group' discussions, we didn't really walk away with too much information.  I think that all the parents who know how to cope didn't go to this discussion... bummer.  I was hoping they'd tell us things to do but really, they just asked what we've all been doing.  I guess what we walked away with, was the fact that although we feel like fish out of water, we're actually doing ok.  Now that we're in week 3, I've been sleeping (sometimes), and obviously -Sadie is happy with my parents, and things aren't as up and down as they were in week 1.  I know that we'll continue to have ups and downs (we met a girl who had her baby at 24 weeks and is now in week 29 - she's continuing to have ups and downs, and her mom lives in Jamaica!).  We talked a lot about feelings... ugh - but we all felt basically the same things... confusion (why did this happen), fear (is my baby going to come home), frustration, anxiety, guilt, sadness, occasional happiness... and many more.  The bottom line is that it all takes time.  When will the day come when I put effort in to what I'm wearing again, when will I start having an appetite again, when will I want to think about anything other than my family... no one can answer these questions - I guess it all just takes time.

p.s. I learned that you're not allowed to wear nail polish when you have a baby in the NICU because bacteria can grow in chipped nail polish.  Good thing I didn't paint my nails when I did Sadie's the other day.