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Challenge: NICU Parenting

Feisty One

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One pound, fourteen ounces, twelve inches long. Opened eyes on day six to finally take in his sterile, beeping surroundings. A new experience on week five, getting to hold him, and finally feeling like a mother for the first time. What had I been before that moment? Why hadn't my mothering instincts kicked in?

Hemorrhage and spinal taps, surgeries and swearing. Weighing tiny diapers and measuring the tiniest cc's of breastmilk. Intubation, extubation, new nurses every shift. Feeder/grower, gaining momentum, not just weight. "He's a feisty one" the nurses said. Tracking and logging oxygen levels, weight gain and breast milk as closely as a farmer measures rain. This doesn't feel like motherhood.

Day 186; home. Overjoyed, overstimulated, pretending that I'm not terrified.

Can it be twenty-six years since those days in the NICU? Where did the time go? How did we all survive it? How did he survive it? Feistiness served this NICU baby well.

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