During the course of my three-hour visit with Ian today, he held my finger a lot. I placed my hand on his tummy, head, arms and feet as much as possible to make my presence known.
At different intervals he would cry or cough. No one can hear him when he cries or coughs because the ETT (defined in the previous entry) depresses his vocal cords. This saddens me deeply, that someone has to be looking at hime to realize he is upset. He gets very red, balls his little fists up and tightly squeezes his eyes shut. Watching him freak out just hurts me so much. I know they are taking excellent care of him, but I worry that he is this tiny baby in a hospital instead of cozy at home with his mommy.
I don't have the emotional capacity yet to be at his bedside all the time, not to mention I'm supposed to be pumping breast milk (which is currently a disaster due to thrush) and recovering from major abdominal surgery. I must heal. I will have to return to work sooner than later. I am frightened that Ian and I will have NO mommy-baby time for maternity leave. We are spending our maternity leave in NICU right now. While most moms would know their babies cries right about now I have never even HEARD him cry. I have good NICU days and rough ones.
Today was good yet rough. Watching him cry and cough I just started constantly fighting to hold back my tears. I hate when people that I'm not close to ask me if I'm ok. Asking me if I'm ok is a ticket to Crystal's Waterworks Land. It's not a good luck. I don't like to cry in front of strangers. I don't just cry, I fall to pieces and break down completely. Don't open the flood gates! Lol.
There I was fighting back tears and my son opened his eye (just one, his left eye--he was lying on his right side and chose to leave the right one closed). He opened his little warm brown eye and looked at me, his mommy. This made it harder to fight back tears. Then his one open eye rolled back into the socket for a moment so that I could only see the white. Maybe this should have freaked me out, but I attributed it to the fact that he is constantly sedated. He focused his eye on me a few more times despite its tendency to roll back. It seemed like he was fighting to look at me, coordinating his muscles as best he could. I was pretty close to his face, so I am sure that he saw me at least somewhat.
All of this made me want to cry even more, the tears constantly welled in my eyes. Why can't my son be home with me so that I can hear his cries and coughs and attend to him? It sucks so much that I have to drive across town (though not ridiculously far, thank God) to see him. There are so many steps (30) between my son and me: step out of apt, lock door, open van door, start van, drive van to hospital passing through at least 15 traffic lights, pull into parking garage, get parking ticket, drive to 3rd floor (at least) for suitable spot, park, turn off van, lock van, get on elevator, exit elevator, cross street, walk down sidewalk, cross street, walk up sidewalk to hospital, check in with security, walk down hallway to elevator, get on elevator, exit elevator, turn left, turn right, turn left, enter NICU waiting room on right, have receptionist call back, gain access to NICU ward, walk to Ian's pod, open door, scrub in, then FINALLY visit with Ian. Sometimes there are additional steps, like last week when he had a fever briefly and we had to put on yellow gowns.
It would be dramatic to stay that I am at my wit's end right now but this is really wearing on me--maternity leave without my baby, leave that technically ends as of December 9th. I have the "opportunity" to learn how to knit via one of the social workers and join a mommy's group (which I plan to do) but it all pales in comparison to having 24/7 access to my baby son.
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