The Hardest Month of My Life

Olive's crazy pregnancy and birth story were only a sample of the challenges I would have to face.  The emotions that I went through the month Olive was in the NICU have been safely packaged up and tucked deep into my hard and far from my memory for a reason.  To this day I cry when I remember how if felt to be without her.  I cry now as I am typing this.  I want to remember though, so I am going to write it out.

Olive was born 6 weeks early, and although I received the steroid injections, her lungs were not ready to breath air yet.  She needed oxygen support soon after birth.  I wasn't allowed to hold her until she was three days old.  I could go down the NICU in a wheelchair during my stay at the hospital and sit with her as much as I was able.  My blood pressure was really messed up after the birth due to the toxemia, that I had these crippling headaches whenever I was upright.  I tried once a day to go see her if I could.  

My friend Emily came to see me in the hospital on the third day and took me down to the NICU to see Olive. The nurse let me hold her for all of a minute, but it as amazing.  I hate looking at these pictures because they make me cry to this day, but I am happy Emily took them for me.

I stayed 6 days at the hospital total, 4 after her birth. I pumped milk religiously every 3 hours night and day and they took it down to Olive and she received it through a tube.  Thank god for one thing going right! My boobs knew their job man and the nurse were blown away by my supply after only 2 days post partum.

Each day Olive grew stronger and eventually came off CPAP.  They were telling us she may be there only 1 or two weeks.

Being discharged from the hospital without your baby was heart wrenching.  I walked past the nurses station, my husband holding my hand tight, passing by all the moms with their babies nestled in their carseats ready to go home.  This heart wrenching feeling was the same each time I left the hospital over the next month....