Get me off this rollercoaster

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

Such is the life of a NICU parent.

One day is great, the next day is bad.

You take two steps forward then one step back.

Or one step forward and three steps back.

One day I'm loving life and feel like the luckiest mom in the world to be blessed with such a beautiful little boy...  Then the next day I wonder what in the crap I got myself into.  I have thoughts like, 

THIS is what I wanted?!  

I'm not cut out for this!  

WHY won't he stop crying?!  

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU SON?!!!!!!!!

... I now know why moms take naps.

I don't know how I'm going to do all of this on my own by the time Wyatt finally leaves the NICCU.  At least now I've got lots of hands at my disposal to help.  After I spend 8 straight hours trying to console an un-consolable child that won't stop crying, I can go home and try to rest up.

We had a good day yesterday.  Wyatt was happy and smiled a lot.  I held him for about an hour and a half and he slept in my arms like a little angel the whole time.  He was even good all night long and I was able to get 5 hours of sleep. 

Today was one of those days that I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get Wyatt to calm down.  He had a new nurse today, of course, and so on top of trying to make him happy, I had to teach her how to handle him and what works and what doesn't.  It seems like he always gets a new nurse on his bad days.  Such is my luck... I guess it's a good thing I'm not a gambling woman.  Anyway, I'm sure all moms could relate to me when I say that I wish I was telepathic and could hear all of Wyatt's thoughts.  I wish he had some way of telling me what's wrong and what I can do to make it all better.  I don't know if he was just grumpy today, if his skin hurt, if he was hungry, if his body didn't like that the dr.'s went down on the ventilator settings.  I don't know if he's having a hard time breathing, if his picc line is bothering him or if he itches everywhere from his skin trying to heal where it has sloughed off.  But there was literally no making him happy today.  I tried holding him for an hour, I practically bathed him in aquaphor every 30 minutes, I checked him for blisters and found none, I tried swaddling him.  Nothing would work for more than 2 minutes.  He kicked and screamed and thrashed around his bed like I've never seen before.  By the time we hit the 7 hour mark I just took a step back and let him just let it out.  I thought, maybe if I just leave him alone for a couple of minutes and let him scream he'll wear himself out.  Nope.  Sadly, with all of his tantrum throwing, his skin rubbed on itself and the sheet and he hurt himself even worse.  Yesterday his skin looked sooo good.  He hurt all of that progress and is now started to slough off all the skin on his hands, feet, arms, legs and belly.  AND all of the friction created a ton of blisters.

I hate this.

I don't like to use the word hate... but I really hate this.

There was a silver lining to the day though.  A followup echo was done and the tiny PDA that had re-opened in Wyatt's heart is now closed.  Also, an x-ray the other day showed he had irregular gas patterns in his bowels and as of this morning it looks normal.  The result of those two things equals Wyatt got to start feeds again today.  I got him to calm down enough to take a bottle!  Sort of.  This was his first time with a bottle and I don't think he knew quite what to make of it.  See, term babies have the suck, swallow and breathe thing down as a natural impulse...  but preemie babies that don't start feeds right away have to learn it.  I've been giving him a pacifier for about 4 weeks now so he can practice his sucking while breathing, but he's never had to incorporate swallowing with that.  It took about 30 minutes to get him to finish 3 cc's of breastmilk.  After the first half of it, he threw up, but the nurse thinks that is because he'd been screaming for 4 hours prior and had lots of gas in his belly.  He finished the rest of it and kept it down, but a couple of minutes later resumed throwing his fit.  I asked the nurse to give him his morphine early so that he could calm down, because exerting all of that energy is really bad for a tiny baby.  He needs to stay calm so his body can focus on growing and getting big and strong.  She gave morphine and a tylonel suppository at the same time in hopes that it would work better than his last dose of morphine did {the 10:30 dose only worked for about 40 minutes} and luckily it did.  I think the combination of the drugs and exhaustion made him pass out.  Because he was so worked up all day, his feeds have been discontinued until tomorrow.  They want to give him a break so he can rest up.  

When he fell asleep, I left the hospital and went home.  There is no part of me that feels like I'm ready to be a mom.  I really don't know how I'm going to do this on my own when Wyatt finally comes home.  I mean, I know I've got Jared to help me...  But he's at work all day and I'll be at home with Wyatt and when he has a day where he's on his 6th hour of crying... siggghhhhhhhhh... I just can't help but feel a little sorry for the pair of us.  We'll definitely be a sight for sore eyes on those days.

Hopefully I'll be able to learn a ton of handy stuff at this conference in 3 weeks.  I'm excited to meet all of the parents that I'll be able to relate to.  I'm excited to learn from them and from the experts.  I hope that I'll make lots of new friendships that will last for years to come.

I can't believe it's already just 3 weeks from tomorrow that we leave.  Actually, I can't believe a lot of number things.  Like, Wyatt is already 6 weeks and 4 days old.  How did that happen?  And as of last night he weighs 4 lbs. 4 oz.  FOUR POUNDS!!!  He's put on almost 2 pounds in 6.5 weeks.  That just blows my mind.  He's such a little chunkster now. :)

Since he's 6 weeks old, that means I had him 6 weeks ago {duh, I know} which means I can officially start working out again.  My c-section scar is really healing "beautifully" as a doctor would say.  So yesterday I "worked out" for the first time since last September.  2 months of IVF stuff plus 6 months being prego, plus 6 weeks of Wyatt's life equals it's been forever since I've used my body.  I went out for about 2 miles, jogged about a quarter mile and walked the rest of it, and man oh man am I feeling it in my legs today.  It's absolutely pathetic.  But I guess I have to start somewhere right?  I'm determined to run a half marathon next year so at least I've got some time.  I'm also determined to be as skinny as I was in highschool.  So game on body, I've got 20 pounds of you that's going bye bye.

Anyway, I'm sending good ju-ju to all the NICU parents in the world.  I hope your babies get better soon and that you will have all the strength you need to be able to endure your own little rollercoaster.

<3