Months Later...

I know I've not been blogging. I had plans of writing funny stories about pregnant Slick, but then at week 18 we found out that we had lost one of the twins. We still have the other. In fact, he got tired of waiting and showed up during week 34-5/7.

My son - whom we'll refer to as "Z" - is 2 weeks old today. This means he's still days shy of 37 weeks. This means he's still a preemie.

Soon after his birth, we nearly lost Z to a collapsed lung. The doctors & nurses in the Presbyterian Hospital in Matthews, NC worked all night to keep him alive. A decade ago, this may not have been possible. That was then, this is now. My little dude lived. My little dude is beginning to defy expectations. He's a fighter. (Old school, first edition D&D)

The first few days were hard. He was constantly watched. They had more than one additional intervention. Yet, once the weekend was over, he started to surprise everyone. Z began to improve rapidly. Nurses would go home for their nights off and come back shocked. He started out with a ventilator, chest tube, feeding tube & a nutrient tube in his belly button. By the time he was a week old, they started removing tubes and wires to expose one damned-cute baby to the world.

Now, even though the image of my son looking like a Borg-baby is still fresh, there's serious talk of us taking him home. We're "ready." We've got the gear. We've had infant-CPR. We've been working with the nurses daily to understand how he's the same as (and different then) any other baby. And yet, we're old enough and just wise enough to know, we're not ready. One can never be ready for their first baby to come home.

Preemies have special needs for the first 2 to 6 months. All babies need caution around people and germs. Z won't be going "public" for at least 2 months. No sick people are supposed to visit. If we get sick, we're supposed to wear masks around him. For the next several months, we're supposed to be germaphobes.

None of this worries me like my fear of him having lung problems. The CPR class is helping to alleviate some of that anxiety. In the hospital, he's got wires all over monitoring his vitals. He's got his nurse, nurses all around, doctors & respiration specialists at a moment's notice. They all know him. They all look at their job in NICU as a "calling." They can protect my son. Can I?

These are all natural fears. And, I'm a big fan of verbalizing fears. I'm a bring my fear into the light and confront it sort of guy. It's probably why I would have taken that infant CPR class even if it wasn't mandatory for all NICU parents.

And yet, let me tell you, there's been nothing better than my nightly visit with Z. Nearly every night these past 2 weeks, I've driven the 30 minutes to the hospital just to help feed and change him. Then I hold him, rock him, hum softly to him. And then I go home alone. The drive itself is draining to do over and over. But the reward is worth it.

At some point during one of my drives, 10,000 Maniacs popped into my head. The song suddenly makes so much more sense to me.

These are the days.

These are days you'll remember.

Never before and never since, I promise

Will the whole world be warm as this

And as you feel it,

You'll know it's true

That you are blessed and lucky

It's true that you

Are touched by something

That will grow and bloom in you

I don't know if this is a blog-resurrection or not. This is a place for me to write when I need to. Sometimes I don't write because I have nothing to say. The last several months I haven't written because I had too much to say. Now, I'm just bubbling with joy & fear.

These are the day!