Highs and lows

Who would think you could feel such highs and lows within such a short period of time? The day started  as normal as it could, we straightened up a little, my cousin Katie and her husband Carl came to visit and bring food and Christmas presents, then I napped, and woke up in the lowest low. There were just SO many thoughts running through my mind. I have a lot of guilt running through me--for a few different reasons. The main thing I hate about this whole situation is that nothing is the baby's fault. She was healthy, and I wish I could put her back in me to finish growing. I just feel like I go to the NICU to look at a science project, and we are growing a baby in an incubator. It hurts to look at her sometimes. She doesn't have the girly physical features, or really any at this point. She is still growing them, and forming into what she will look like. I don't have the connection with her yet, I still find it hard to acknowledge that she is here, or that I have 2 kids. It's just a point that I haven't gotten to yet, and I will find a way.
Then I feel guilt that I am even upset over any of this because I have 2 children who are healthy at this point and are both alive right now. I know too many people who don't even get the opportunity to carry children, or lose them during the process, or have lost them recently. How dare I complain that it just isn't happening the way I'd prefer it to? I'm not sure what it is OK to feel. And I'm not sure how much of that I can even feel OK to share, and not feel like a brat.So that is the point I was stuck in today.

I read this poem today in the NICU book from Baptist:

You carried your baby as long as you could.

You cared as much as you could.

You loved as much as you could.

You cried more than you needed to.

Rest now, we will carry your baby for a while.

We will care as much as we can.

We will love as much as we can.

We will cry less than we need to.

Rest now, your baby has our gifts woven

with yours. We will give her our skills,

our touch, our heads, our hearts.

We will seek to cure and pray to heal.

Rest now, your baby is
small in the eyes of some,
large in the eyes of God,
loved in the eyes of us all.
-Mary Thayer

Lucy's health-- It has been a full week and a few hours since she came into this world! Really? A week old already? That makes her almost 31 weeks. I forget how they count her age now that she is here, and if she still goes by gestational age or what. After she lost her initial weight and stayed down for a little bit, she is back up to 2 pounds 6 ounces. She finally had a good poop today, so she stayed about at the same since last night even though her feedings went up. She is now at 17cc's of breast milk every 3 hours. She eats at 8,11,2, & 5 AM and PM. Yesterday she had some residual after she ate--food that stays in her stomach and doesn't digest. They put a syringe up to her feeding tube before they feed her again, and see what they can pull out. Quite a bit came out yesterday when we were there, but tonight her nurse said she had none! We stayed at the hospital from about 8pm-midnight. We took a little detour to see Kellye, Bill, and baby Chase too! =) We got a lot of conversation in with Lucy's nurse along with other nurses that had gotten to know Luke all last week while they were with her. They are all so positive and happy and say how great of a baby she is. She is just a little spastic at times.haha It's so weird how there are 7 or 8 pound babies in there that are really sick, and their monitors are beeping all the time. And here she is, not even 3 pounds, and is healthy. Praise the Lord! Once again, ah, I hate that my body failed her precious little body! She has 2 ultrasounds tomorrow morning scheduled. One of them, we knew she'd have no matter when she was born. Due to the 1 artery in her umbilical cord, they have to re-check her bowels. I'm staying positive that she is clear of anything due to the ultrasound at my 28 week appointment. The other ultrasound is preformed on all preemie babies to check for bleeding in the brain. Now we start talking scary thoughts. Preemies are just more susceptible to this, and need to be checked. But like her nurse said tonight, it has to be done, and doesn't mean anything is wrong with her, and it's just a bridge you wait to cross until you get to it. And then if it is something we have to deal with, there are many different stages, and different solutions.But we just wait now until we know. And here it is , 3AM, I meant to go to bed 2 hours ago.  We will be heading back up tomorrow night to visit a few more hours. We'll use the day time to rest and nap, luke has an eye Dr. appointment in the evening, and then we'll head up to deliver milk and visit. I did get to hold her again tonight for about 15 minutes. It put me in a really good mood being at the NICU tonight, so the day eneded on a much better note that I'd been in the evening. Someone must have been throwing up some prayers tonight. THANK YOU! I'm hoping not to be on edge until we get the phone call from the DR tomorrow about the ultrasound results. So if you're reading this, maybe some payers for Lucy's good health to continue, good results, and peace until we hear!