Time

Time has flown and time stands still.

Baby Hazel is 6 weeks old and yet it seems like she was born yesterday.

It has been but 6 weeks ago that our world was turned upside down by the birth of our sweet little one, and yet it seems that we have been in this mode of juggling life and hospital visits forever.

Today, I am at her bedside (isolette-side?) yet again just sitting here looking at her. She is so tiny and perfect lying there all wrapped up in her little blankets. Her skin is a sweet pink color and her hair and nails are growing. 

But I know inside it doesn't look quite so good.

Her lungs are still very bad. She is already weaning off her steroids, and yet her lungs are still bad. Her collapsed lung has expanded almost completely, which is good, but the machine that was necessary to help that lung fill caused her to develop PIE again, which is basically little pockets of air that get pushed into and trapped in the lining of her lungs, which is bad. 

This means that Hazel is back on the jet ventilator, she had gone to the conventional to help re-inflate her collapsed lung, and her pressure is back up to 24 and continues to creep up slowly which is also bad. Well, if it's what she needs, then it's what she needs, but that means that she is just that much farther from getting off the generators and getting to come home. Of course, we are not even expecting to have her home for another 2 months or so, but this just bumps it back even farther.

The good thing, and what she really has going for her, is that she is tolerating her feedings very well and is up to 8.5cc's per hour.  She is still getting this through her tube, but it is my milk mixed with fortifiers to make it have more calories and supplements. And all these calories means that she weighs 2lbs 11 oz (1225g for you metric folk out there) which is almost double her birth weight!  Yay Hazel!   

Hazel's neighbor, Ian, went home today. I am at the point where I can rejoice with the parents who get to take their babies home even though I know that we are here for the long haul because I just know that this is the best place for my Hazel Grace, and I know that one day we will be the ones walking in here excitedly wielding the carseat adjusted for her tiny self and ready to go home. 

But what I find harder to come to terms with are all the pregnant women that I seem to see everywhere. I wish them all well, of course, but I am finding it hard to accept that although I should still be pregnant, I am not. I think I find that even harder than seeing newborn babies.  Those babies don't belong to me. I have a newborn and although I wish things were different, I wouldn't trade her for anything, but that pregnancy was mine and I lost it.  Even though it still pains me to not have a 'normal' newborn that I can hold and nurse, I have come to terms with Hazel being Hazel, but I still have not found the way to accept that this is me...the non-pregnant, done-with-that-life-stage me.

I feel as if somehow I have failed. I know that's crazy because there was nothing that I could have done to change the outcome of this pregnancy, but I can't help but feel that it was somehow my fault. But there's not even anything to look back on and and say 'if only' about.  I didn't fall, no accidents, no drugs or alcohol...nothing. 

It just was.

But the early termination of this pregnancy through a preterm birth means that I ended everything early...

And if I'm not pregnant, then that means no more babies. And if there are no more babies, then these will all grow up. And when these all grow up then I will miss them being here and being my babies....

And I was supposed to have 4 more months to prepare for that and a snuggly baby to love who also cried in the middle of the night to remind me of how much I will NOT miss that stage! 

But then I realize that that is me being comfortable in the life stage I'm in, and not only do I need to move on to be able to realize my full God-given potential, my whole life and comfort will be shaken when our sweet baby Hazel Grace comes home anyway.

Nothing is stagnant. Nothing is stable. Nothing is ever where you left it and there's no point in looking back. 

So, rather than mourn my losses, I need to lift my head and wipe my tears to be able to see more clearly the new challenges and opportunities that are being laid before me.

Because no matter what we do or don't do, time flies!

Phillipians 3:13-14
But one thing I do:  Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus..