I have shared the raw emotion I have dealt with for the past year. Let me share with you what is fascinating about a micropreemie. The joys. The upside. The breaks.
These items are in no particular order, except as they came into my mind.
#1) By the time you bring your micropreemie home, you are completely recovered from the C-section and all that you dealth with, physically, after the birth.
#2) You are used to sleep deprivation, from pumping every 2 hours around the clock.
#3) Once your milk supply is built up, you have nights to be good to yourself, to get 5 hours of sleep at a time. Katie was 2 months old when I felt confident and freedom to power pump at 10pm and get up at 4AM to power pump. Getting one's sleep is NOT overrated, as any mommy knows.
#4) A micropreemie is still tiny and stays small, longer. Lots may find this a troubling fact - but I find that it is wonderful. Clothes last longer! When my boys were Katie's age they were 18 and 20lbs. Everything is going to last longer: her swing, her floor toys, her exersaucer, carseat. Katie is now moving into 6-9 month clothes and she is almost 10 months old. I was so tired with my boys at her size, and they grew so fast. I remember wishing they would slow down so I could savor their baby-ness. With Katie, I still don't want her to grow too fast, after all, she is my last baby - but I am loving that she is a peanut. She is healthy and happy and she has rolls. Her tinyness is part because she is a micropreemie. I like to believe, her petite and tiny frame is favoring me, as a baby and child. I was teeny tiny for a long time. I wore a size 6X from first grade through 3rd grade.
#5) You can buy a big box of diapers and they last longer because at size 2's, which she will be in a while longer (probably another 3 months), we get more bang for our buck because the smaller the diaper, the more fit in the box!
#6) You get the honor of watching your baby develop outside of the womb. They are miraculous. All the beeps and alarms and tubes and lines that baby is covered by, in the beginning, all go away. One by one signaling, your baby is getting ready to go home because your baby's systems are developing everything she needs. Your baby is producing all fluids, enzymes, hormones she needs to survive.
#7) You get to see a tiny baby, with eyes wide open and interact. A month after we came home with Katie, we had friends come to meet our Warrior Princess. The common sentiment? Shock that a baby so young was so interactive and attentive. I think it really demonstrates what a Warrior Princess looks like - Surreal yet....real! She is magical.
#8) Coming out on the other side of PPROM, having a micropreemie, being separated from your 2 other babies at home and the man that means more than other human being to you, is strength! Faith! Honor! Authenticity! Self-worth! Resilience! Priorities! All of that has taken several months to surface after coming home - or it did me. I know now, that while it was traumatic and hard and it sucked........I would do it all over again because of the weekends and evenings I have with my beautiful family of 5, sitting in one room, laughing, wrestling, dancing, snuggling.
#9) Having a micropreemie is a call to LIVE. You watch this tiny human being struggle to breathe and fight to live. Suddenly, you realize this tiny human being is so damn excited to be here and chooses to be here. Do I look at my life that way? What do I want in life? What is inside of me that has been lying dormant? What have I been afraid of and want to overcome? What I have settled for and am sick of putting up with? What is the lesson I need to learn to stop cycles?
#10) My favorite think about having my micropreemie is she is 10 months old tomorrow. She is still all about snuggling during my favorite season - Fall. She's not about crawling and getting into everything yet. ;)
xoxo ~ Beth
These items are in no particular order, except as they came into my mind.
#1) By the time you bring your micropreemie home, you are completely recovered from the C-section and all that you dealth with, physically, after the birth.
#2) You are used to sleep deprivation, from pumping every 2 hours around the clock.
#3) Once your milk supply is built up, you have nights to be good to yourself, to get 5 hours of sleep at a time. Katie was 2 months old when I felt confident and freedom to power pump at 10pm and get up at 4AM to power pump. Getting one's sleep is NOT overrated, as any mommy knows.
#4) A micropreemie is still tiny and stays small, longer. Lots may find this a troubling fact - but I find that it is wonderful. Clothes last longer! When my boys were Katie's age they were 18 and 20lbs. Everything is going to last longer: her swing, her floor toys, her exersaucer, carseat. Katie is now moving into 6-9 month clothes and she is almost 10 months old. I was so tired with my boys at her size, and they grew so fast. I remember wishing they would slow down so I could savor their baby-ness. With Katie, I still don't want her to grow too fast, after all, she is my last baby - but I am loving that she is a peanut. She is healthy and happy and she has rolls. Her tinyness is part because she is a micropreemie. I like to believe, her petite and tiny frame is favoring me, as a baby and child. I was teeny tiny for a long time. I wore a size 6X from first grade through 3rd grade.
#5) You can buy a big box of diapers and they last longer because at size 2's, which she will be in a while longer (probably another 3 months), we get more bang for our buck because the smaller the diaper, the more fit in the box!
#6) You get the honor of watching your baby develop outside of the womb. They are miraculous. All the beeps and alarms and tubes and lines that baby is covered by, in the beginning, all go away. One by one signaling, your baby is getting ready to go home because your baby's systems are developing everything she needs. Your baby is producing all fluids, enzymes, hormones she needs to survive.
#7) You get to see a tiny baby, with eyes wide open and interact. A month after we came home with Katie, we had friends come to meet our Warrior Princess. The common sentiment? Shock that a baby so young was so interactive and attentive. I think it really demonstrates what a Warrior Princess looks like - Surreal yet....real! She is magical.
#8) Coming out on the other side of PPROM, having a micropreemie, being separated from your 2 other babies at home and the man that means more than other human being to you, is strength! Faith! Honor! Authenticity! Self-worth! Resilience! Priorities! All of that has taken several months to surface after coming home - or it did me. I know now, that while it was traumatic and hard and it sucked........I would do it all over again because of the weekends and evenings I have with my beautiful family of 5, sitting in one room, laughing, wrestling, dancing, snuggling.
#9) Having a micropreemie is a call to LIVE. You watch this tiny human being struggle to breathe and fight to live. Suddenly, you realize this tiny human being is so damn excited to be here and chooses to be here. Do I look at my life that way? What do I want in life? What is inside of me that has been lying dormant? What have I been afraid of and want to overcome? What I have settled for and am sick of putting up with? What is the lesson I need to learn to stop cycles?
#10) My favorite think about having my micropreemie is she is 10 months old tomorrow. She is still all about snuggling during my favorite season - Fall. She's not about crawling and getting into everything yet. ;)
xoxo ~ Beth
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