Sleepless Nights...

Rob and I are anxiously awaiting the time when our sleepless nights occur as a result of having a baby at home rather than as a result of hospital phone calls in the middle of the night informing us of changes in our son’s status or our own worry that something horrible will happen to him while we are not there.

Words cannot even begin to describe the gamut of emotions Rob and I have experienced over the past six weeks: fear, excitement, joy, sadness, anger, confusion, disappointment, gratitude, envy, frustration, apprehension, and hope, among many others. Often times we have felt three or four emotions all at once within the same hour.

When the doctors finally realized that I was in labor, a surge of emotions possessed my being.  I was panicked at the thought that I had no idea how to have a baby – me, the planner who is overly prepared for everything, was not ready for this small (emphasis on small) bundle of joy to enter the world.  Our childbirth classes were not scheduled for another month, I had not read the labor and delivery chapter in the baby book, and we had yet to watch the birthing DVD. I literally did not know what to do to birth my child or what to even expect. The pain of childbirth from what I had heard from other women terrified me. My biggest fear of labor was the notion that my labor would progress to the point that I would be unable to receive an epidural (a fear that the hospital staff tried to assure me wouldn’t happen…little did I know that they would eventually be wrong).

None of the emotions I felt about the delivery itself compared to the emotions I felt about my child. Rob and I had imagined in our heads those picture-perfect textbook births - baby comes out, doctor exclaims, “It’s a __________!” (because as of that moment we didn’t know little William’s gender), parents look at each other and cry, and baby gets placed on mom for holding. When the neonatologist came to discuss with us the challenges and prospects for a baby born at 28 weeks gestation, the reality of the matter paralyzed us. We didn’t experience joy at the thought of our baby arriving like most parents do, but rather we were gripped with the fear of the fact that after all of this anticipation, our child may not survive. If he did survive, the obstacles he would face along his way to full-term and beyond could be equally as serious. We both questioned why this was happening. When William was born, there was no tender moment, there was no time for me to hold my baby, and there were tears of grief mixed in with the tears of joy.

Following William’s birth, I couldn’t stop searching for what I did wrong. Did I exercise too much? Did I drink enough fluids? Did I ask enough questions at my doctor’s appointments? What could I have done to stop the labor and help my baby boy? I felt in so many ways that I had failed this sweet little boy. I wanted in so many ways to trade places with him. I desired in so many ways just to take my baby home with me. At the discharge class that Rob and I had to participate in, we stared in envy at the other parents holding their plump, pink babies while we sat there with nothing in our arms and the knowledge that the issues we were going to face in our road ahead would be so much different than those parents. At the same time, we felt happiness for those parents holding their healthy babies.

I am happy to say that even though we are still on a rollercoaster of emotions, we have been able to enjoy a few more moments of hope and excitement as William grows stronger and bigger each day. I still worry about being prepared for the future with this little guy from simple things like we don’t have a car seat yet and the nursery isn’t near ready for him to larger fears like wondering when William will finally be able to conquer feeds and to overcome his apnea and bradycardia spells.  I feel twinges of sadness from time to time at missing the third trimester of my pregnancy – I feel like I got cheated somehow out of that uncomfortable yet miraculous time with my body. I try not to think too far ahead otherwise I become overwhelmed easily. Will William have any developmental delays? What kind of interventions will he need? Will he be healthy? Will he ever catch up to his actual age?

For now, the cry of William in his crib at home because he is hungry at two o’clock in the morning is a sound Rob and I are eager to hear.

-Lori