NICU – Congratulate Milestones!

When you feel ready…

On Day 35, we felt ready.

Until then, I got hold of the milk production process, recovered from C-difficile bacteria which messed up my whole digestive system for a long time, got myself a routine, prayed for coming out of this journey stronger.

My husband stood strong as always although I knew he also took this time to internally digest the process.

D. on the other hand, weighed a little over 2 kg after 35 days of intensive care, slowly progressing from IV feedings to expressed breastmilk feedings.

Weight is a critical growth indicator. All the medical effort is pretty much towards helping the baby gain weight as quickly as possible. We were tracking it daily and she was growing nicely despite some hiccups along the way.

Until she hit 2 kg, celebrating milestones did not even occur to us. On that day, while we were leaving NICU, we decided that it is now time to start normalizing our situation. We went out to our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate, which happened to be very close to the hospital.

During dinner, we talked about how D. was moving her head side to side. We laughed at her small responses she gave us with her tiny hands and fingers. We encouraged each other by talking about how lucky we got. We cheered with tacos, made a video of us celebrating to share with D. in the future.

This was our first happy moment after all we have been through. We paused the worry machine for a second. Stopped talking about her medical situation for a night.

Went home. Slept nicely. Woke up to a new fresh day!