I thought I was doing ok, but it comes in waves.

We are taking it day by day, but it gets harder to leave. although it becomes more and more of a familiar feeling, making it seem ok. But it’s not. It’s actually hard.

Today was ok, tonight was harder for me. We are 20 days in and the repetition slowly eats at me. I wonder when this will be in the past? The day time routine, of me going there, carrying my daily items to get me through my time with Tanner. Then the evenings of driving there with Max to say goodnight and who knows how long those visits will end up being.

Tonight was hard. We got there and she was swaddled where some of it was undone, over her bottom half of her face. As I peeled it away, the alarm also went off at the same time and underneath she had spitup running down her cheeks. The nurse was in quick but I seen it first and took care of it.

That gets to me.

I can’t be there and take care of her. We have to rely on basically strangers to take care of our baby girl.. it is hard to do.

Today it was just hard.

Its a hard balance of taking care of her, and taking care of myself.

The mom guilt can be real.

Im told to be there. I want to be there for her. I am told taking care of myself too is also taking care of her. It’s a balance within my mind that I have to find the happy place where I know I am fulfilling both our needs, the best as I can.

Some days I got it, some days I feel I dont. But both days I show up and try.

and I guess that is part of new chapters and new, unknown adventures to walk down – You just have to try. I remind myself to take it day by day and to not count down the hopeful end date where we can walk through those doors one last time.

I have to focus on the daily routines.

Show up the best I can. Do the best I can for her, me, my family and our future. Thats all I can control and even when its hard, I know this version of hard will inevitably pass. I also can choose to look at it as something that preparing us or offering us an insight to something else. Our appreciation will be so much greater once we are “normal”. I will cherish my ability to look after my baby on my own. I will be so excited to do “normal” things that I haven’t been able to do yet. I know when I do them, I will feel so much joy finally fulfilling my motherly role.

For now, we are where we are. That is ok. Even if it is hard some days. Even if I dont know the date, I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we will reach it soon.

I suspect another 3 week here.

Currently we are waiting on tanner to eat and grow. So far she is eating full feeds, which is 35 ml every 3 hours. However our obstacle is her puking some of it out. If she cant handle it, we go back to feeding less milk every 2 hours. That would be a step backwards, but it might be necessary. A step backwards is hard to handle for me. But if its what she needs, then we go slow again for her. Ultimately our end goal is that she can eat full feeds orally under 30 minutes.

To put that into context to see how far we need to go:

She is currently eating all feeds through the tube. every 3 hours (for now) and the time span of 1 hour. That needs to get reduced to 30 minutes or less. Then when she shows signs for sucking, which I am happy to see she is, then they try one oral feed in a 12 hour span.

if she can handle the oral feed, they will keep upping the amount of oral feedings until she is fully bottle and boob fed for 2 days.. Then the day arrives where we all come home!

This is a long process. By the time she is there, it will be no less then 3-4 weeks from today. I did not like to see her uncomfortable tonight but we also have to test her in order to either keep progressing or retract back to her comfort level. Today, she is 33 weeks and one day old, weighing 1860 KG and overall is doing really well.

We are looking at the bright side and we will get through this a little bit stronger then we were before.

Thank you for reading.

Shelby

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Ps. If you’d like to support our story, or as a way to say thank you to me for sharing my story, we will accept the universal gift of money as a baby gift.

PayPal : shelbschlager@gmail.com

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