This time it will be different

I had my weekly monitoring done today – I climbed into the recliner, got hooked up to baby’s heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor and clicked through the channels on the TV. As I lay there listening to his heart thump away on the monitor and listened for ups and downs and heard the swishing of his movements I thought to myself how lucky I am. How blessed I am to hear that reassuring sound of his heart beat and have the close watch of so many doctors this time around. My nurse walked in and brought me a glass of water and we chatted about my pregnancy, complications and delivery with Claire. She had a 30 week baby. She understood. We talked about the hardships of an emergency C-section, our babies being taken away from us immediately after birth, and the heartache of leaving them in the hospital the day we had to leave. We talked about how you’ll never truly understand until you’ve been there – lived it. And we wouldn’t wish it on anyone – but when you find someone that understands, who’s been there, it’s so nice because they “get it”.

We touched on a topic that is not an easy one to talk about. And I’ve only shared with a few. The lack of bonding that you have with your child when they are sick or premature and you’re not able to hold and nurse and be with them following birth. When you don’t take them home to parent them, and instead feel like a visitor, an outsider when you’re in the NICU. The nurses are the ones that pick them up on the middle of the night when they cry, the nurses are the ones that feed them when you can’t be there. The nurses are the ones to change them and bathe them and dress them. (Not that we aren’t SO VERY THANKFUL for the wonderful, caring, loving NICU nurses) They’re hooked up to monitors and tubes and wires and you have to be so careful. And they’re so small and fragile. And to be brutally honest, I was a little afraid of handling Claire when she was born. She was just so tiny and had so much going on. It was months before I had a true, mother-daughter bond with Claire. Not that I didn’t love her, because I had SO much love for her and I was in love with her the second I laid eyes on her. I just didn’t FEEL what I feel for her now. I felt guilty for not feeling that strong bond that everyone talks about and you read about. I thought that I wasn’t normal. I cried myself to sleep many nights and prayed to God to help me feel what I was supposed to feel. And slowly it came to me. After we brought her home and I was taking care of her and nursing her FEELING her on me – holding her close to me for hours. Breathing in her sweet smells and staring at her beautiful face for hours.

I can’t wait to have it again this time, but with my Baby Boy.

But this time, it will be different.