One week old!

One week old today! In many ways it feels like she has been here so much longer. My emotions are running wild today. It probably doesn’t help that I was up with Levi in the middle of the night and crying from frustration with him at 3am. But, all that being said, I’ve really had to take a look at how I am coping and what I am feeling through all of this, even if it has only been a week. This post is more about me and being open about how I am coping. Maybe it will help someone else with what they are going through. ***** I love being at the hospital with Alexis, watching her get stronger every day, and being there for those big milestones. I think it’s because that’s all I can do right now. I can’t be her mom yet, which is really hard for me. I’ve only changed one diaper so far (not a huge deal, since I know there will be plenty more to do in the near future) and I haven’t fed her since Tuesday. I can count the number of hours I have held her on my fingers and nothing I do can ease her pain or discomfort. This whole experience has been God teaching me to let go a little bit, and I’m grateful for the lesson in faith, but I can’t help feeling like I am a huge part missing from my little girl’s life. I want to be able to hold her without all the tubes and wires attached to her. I want to be able to hold her whenever I want, not around the nurses who are taking such great care of her. I want to be able to change her diapers and feed her. And I want us to be able to be together as a family, not rotating out who can visit her based on the number of people in the room. ***** There is also Levi. My little boy has been so great through this whole thing and we have been asking a lot of him. He is very much a routine kind of kid. He likes to know what is happening where, and who is participating. While we are here there is basically a revolving door of visitors. Every few days new people come to stay for a while, then they leave again, normally taking someone else with them. While he has done incredibly well with all of these transitions, he is still only two, and we can only expect so much from him. Since he is so out of his comfort zone during the transition times, he is finding other things to control: potty and bedtime. He absolutely refuses to go to the bathroom on the potty now, and bedtime is an hour-long battle of wills. It is that much harder because we are essentially in a hotel and we don’t want him to disturb any of the other families. You should see the circus we go through to get him quietly to sleep. We know it is going to be yet another hard transition when we go back home, but we will face that when we come to it. I want to spend as much time with Levi as I do with Alexis. Unfortunately, having just had a baby a week ago, I’m still lacking in the energy department. He loves spending time with his dad and his Grammie, but I still want to be his mom and I don’t want him to suffer because I am spending so much time with Alexis. ***** Then there is Jason. He is the best, most amazing husband and father any girl could ask for. He has taken such great care of us and tries so hard to make sure all of our needs are met. He takes care of Levi while I recover and spend time with Alexis, and he makes time for Alexis when I have Levi at bedtime. We have not really had a chance to spend much time together, just us, but when we have a chance to talk I realize this is hard in different ways for him. I won’t go into details, but please pray for him and all of these emotions that he has to sort through. ***** The update for today: She started off super and I spent a lot of time holding her. After a little while her color started changing and her breathing was very labored. They decided the best option was to put her on a cpap machine to help inflate her lungs. Since she was extubated she has had a lot of “secretions,” aka mucus in her lungs, and that has caused a bit of a collapse in her left lung. The doctor had mentioned this morning, before all of the breathing issues came up, that we might be moving out of the CICU today or tomorrow. I’m a little discouraged at this setback, but we will continue to pray that God opens up her little lungs and keeps healing her quickly for the next critical steps and beyond. Thank you for the continued prayers and know that they really do mean so much to us.