Preemie Parenthood: Unmet Expectations (1 of 2)

Preemie Parenthood: Unmet Expectations
Part 1 of 2: Preemie #1 Ellie

(I wrote this back in May, initially for the upcoming blog for NICU Helping Hands. So promise me you will go to their site to read it too, when it's posted there too!) But this preemie mama world is so genuine and connected...and I so wish we were the last parents to have to go through the NICU dance...but we're not. It's an issue that has been pressing on my heart lately...and I just felt the need to post our story....now. So, if you are parents with a little one in the NICU right now...or even family and friends...my prayer is that this will give you some real life perspective...now...amidst the "storm."

I remember talking to Ben before we were even dating about how many children we envisioned each of us having. Naturally, as we both are the youngest of four … we both said four. We fell in love; we got married. We simply expected we would have four.

Fast forward through finishing our undergrad degrees and the starting of our graduate degrees to September 3, 2008. This day we agreed that the decision of how many kids to have would be made one child at a time. This day changed our lives forever  as we met our 2 lb. 7.5 miracle. Our baby girl was born at 27 weeks, 6 days gestation. After a whirlwind helicopter ride to the hospital, and a few short hours of trying to stop labor, our expectations of a beautiful full-term pregnancy and delivery were blown out of the water.

Unmet expectation.

So now what? We were thrust into a foreign world of parenting of a premature infant where we were somehow supposed to be “ok” with having a baby in an isolette hooked up to breathing support, IV fluids, and feeding tubes. Your first hours and days at becoming a parent shouldn’t be wondering and praying if you’re baby is going to live to the next day. It should be filled with joy of figuring out how to feed them and get as much sleep in between as possible. I’m sure there is a little bit of scared to it. But we didn’t expect it to be this scared.

Unmet expectation.

My husband and I were able to stay by our Sweet Ellie’s side every day because our university professors and my part-time job allowed me to work from a distance. We lived at the Ronald McDonald House, which we nicknamed “Ronnie’s.” We were at the NICU as often as possible. We completed our school work as best as we could, but did have to take incompletes for the semester. 

Unmet expectation.

So as you can imagine, it was a bit hard on our marriage. But for the most part, we were able to be together most of the time, with our little girl. We clung to each other. We grieved that so many of our expectations were unmet. However the scary ups and downs drew us together. When I had my really bad days, Ben was strong. When I would wake up at night with nightmares of Ellie dying, Ben would hold me. (That may or may not have been in a twin sized bed. J) When Ben was stressed about managing classes and finding a job, I gave him the encouragement and support he needed. We were so blessed by the support of our family, friends and church the entire 71 days of Ellie’s NICU stay … and even after. Our basic needs were met by those who love us, and that allowed us to focus on our tiny growing baby together.

We took our princess home on November 13, 2008. We were in survival mode. Taking care of Ellie ourselves, catching up on coursework, Ben finding a job after graduation. It was difficult to make time for each other. We were in survival mode.

We moved to Texas in July, and there is when it really hit me. Whoa. What just happened? Life finally slowed down enough for me to really grieve all of the unmet expectations we had of growing our family. This was frustrating for me because although I was dealing with this so delayed, Ben seemed as if he had already moved on. No problem.

I had days of uncontrollable crying. I felt like something was wrong, and I didn’t know why … after all, Ellie had lived. We now had a growing baby girl who was pretty much on track for her adjusted age. I was supposed to be happy about this. I was happy, but I was sad. I started going to counseling to try and sort out my emotions and feelings. I found out that I had never really “dealt” with the emotions because of such a long survival mode. Even though it went officially undiagnosed I’m almost certain I was was suffering from post-partum depression along with post-traumatic stress syndrome. My counselor told me that it is similar to people battling cancer. They go through the treatments pretty strong, and then after it’s done, is when the emotions and feelings come to the forefront. 

But I was jealous. Jealous that Ben had somehow gotten over things sooner than I. We had to have some long heart to heart conversations about how we were handling things. We had to communicate. It would have been very easy to just grow apart because dealing individually was already exhausting.

But each day got easier. We both said we were going to get through this together. We were both in it for the long haul. We had to come to terms that both of us just handle stress differently. Our coping is different, our stress triggers are different, and that’s ok … as long as we were open with each other about it.

***Read the next post for Preemie Parenthood: Unmet Expectations (Part 2 of 2) ***