Daddy is out of town this week on business so Sofia and I have had a lot of 1-on-1 time. She has been doing really well. Today she was reduced to .25L of flow and tolerated it well, she is really getting stronger each and every day. Her only issue is nutrition at this point. Weight gain has been up and down with a loss of 30 grams, followed by a gain of 70 and another loss of 10, all equaling out to 3lbs1oz tonight. We are looking for much more consistency. Guess it’s a meeting with the Doc tomorrow!

I sat by her bedside for a little while this afternoon and just watched her as she moved her hands in her sleep and stirred to wake up. She peeked her little eyes open and closed them a few times and laid there content in her isolette. It’s her little bubble. It’s warm, it muffles noise, covered in a quilt it’s dark and no one goes in to touch her without Purell or gloves. She’s used to it and so am I. She’s protected, she’s safe in her little fishbowl. I know she’s being monitored and free from stresses and noise and all I could think while watching is this perfect little environment is temporary and she doesn’t even know change is coming.

Her next “graduated” step is to an open air crib. This means she will be open to bright lights, noise and the bustle of nurses and visitors, monitor
alarms and other babies crying. She’ll have no space to escape the chaos. I know she’ll hate that and I hate it for her.

I won’t be there to rock her at 3am if her surroundings scare her. I can’t shield her eyes all day if she’s bothered by the lights. These are the little NICU nuances that are hard to handle even when the clinical things are going well. But this is only the beginning. There is a day in the not too distant future where we’ll leave the NICU.
That scares me more than being away from her. We’ve all been sheltered in this experience. All visitors scrub in like surgeons for 3 minutes before entering rooms with these tiny little ones. They have the best doctors and nurses watching each breath they take. Soon we are on our own. No more gloves. No more scrubbing in. She’ll be out in the open, the real world…no more bubble. Maybe when you leave the hospital with baby in tow, still in a haze of endorphins just 48 hours after delivery it might not sink in, or maybe it does. All I know is having time to anticipate each step is enough to throw paranoia into overdrive. Maybe I shouldn’t worry for her and her ability to adapt, maybe it’s me who I think will have the real struggle.

Daddy is out of town this week on business so Sofia and I have had a lot of 1-on-1 time. She has been doing really well. Today she was reduced to .25L of flow and tolerated it well, she is really getting stronger each and every day. Her only issue is nutrition at this point. Weight gain has been up and down with a loss of 30 grams, followed by a gain of 70 and another loss of 10, all equaling out to 3lbs1oz tonight. We are looking for much more consistency. Guess it’s a meeting with the Doc tomorrow!

I sat by her bedside for a little while this afternoon and just watched her as she moved her hands in her sleep and stirred to wake up. She peeked her little eyes open and closed them a few times and laid there content in her isolette. It’s her little bubble. It’s warm, it muffles noise, covered in a quilt it’s dark and no one goes in to touch her without Purell or gloves. She’s used to it and so am I. She’s protected, she’s safe in her little fishbowl. I know she’s being monitored and free from stresses and noise and all I could think while watching is this perfect little environment is temporary and she doesn’t even know change is coming.

Her next “graduated” step is to an open air crib. This means she will be open to bright lights, noise and the bustle of nurses and visitors, monitor
alarms and other babies crying. She’ll have no space to escape the chaos. I know she’ll hate that and I hate it for her.

I won’t be there to rock her at 3am if her surroundings scare her. I can’t shield her eyes all day if she’s bothered by the lights. These are the little NICU nuances that are hard to handle even when the clinical things are going well. But this is only the beginning. There is a day in the not too distant future where we’ll leave the NICU.
That scares me more than being away from her. We’ve all been sheltered in this experience. All visitors scrub in like surgeons for 3 minutes before entering rooms with these tiny little ones. They have the best doctors and nurses watching each breath they take. Soon we are on our own. No more gloves. No more scrubbing in. She’ll be out in the open, the real world…no more bubble. Maybe when you leave the hospital with baby in tow, still in a haze of endorphins just 48 hours after delivery it might not sink in, or maybe it does. All I know is having time to anticipate each step is enough to throw paranoia into overdrive. Maybe I shouldn’t worry for her and her ability to adapt, maybe it’s me who I think will have the real struggle.