It's hard to believe that one month ago this moment, I was at the clinic, waiting nervously for a diagnosis. Today, we have a 2.7 pound baby in the NICU, and my life is timed according to my breasts. It's going fast, I must say, mainly because of our schedule. When your life is divided up into small chunks of time in between a repeating event, it tends to slide by pretty quickly.
I still don't pump 8-10 times a day. I can't imagine being able to do that. Yesterday, it was only 5, in fact. But there's no more sleeping through the night--the boobs won't let me. It's too uncomfortable, and I wake up. This morning, I was up at 3:00, and that's pretty standard. I had The Machine ready to go when I stumbled out to the living room, so I was headed back to bed at 3:39.
Back to bed. Back to sleep is an entirely other thing. I am usually awake by the time I go back to bed, and I start thinking about all the things I have to do. Right now, its mainly work stuff--end of the fiscal year type of hoo-ha. Very exciting. I lay there last night, thinking and relishing the few short hours during which I can lay on my stomach. And then the cats started.
Max began his ritualistic stalking of something in the yard, from the inside of the house. This involves trotting to the kitchen (or part way to the kitchen), turning around, coming back into our bedroom, jumping up onto the bed, running over us, hopping to the window, jumping down onto the floor, repeat. Ad nauseum. I got up and closed the door as he ran out of the room. Five minutes later, Fritz, who was asleep on the bed, decided that he needed to leave. He scratched at the door, I got up and let him out. Max was right outside, waiting to get in. I closed the door again. Not much time passed before someone was scratching to get in. I got up and opened the door. Sometime later, Pete got up and closed the window because the "f#$%ing birds were too loud." He slept through a cat running over his prone form, but the birds were too loud. OK. That was 4:55. I fell asleep sometime after that. Pete's alarm went off at 6:00. He got up, but did not turn it off, so it went off again at 6:08 and then 6:16 when my whining finally alerted him. I don't know how to turn off his alarm.
Wait. Was that this morning?
It could have been yesterday.
I am not even sure.
2 comments:
I just watched a pbs special on premies--I taped it last week but have been avoiding it too, being a little afraid. Wow--I learned a lot, about babies AND the parents. It was on the Conn. pbs station, done at the Yale-New Haven childrens hospital. They are the premier researchers on child development also-I hqve followed their works on children for years. Finn is definitely a straight A premie! I can't wait to see him!!!!!! love and kisses to all. grammasue
Karen - Amy pumped for the first four months after Baby Pete's arrival; we came to refer to the Machine as "Old Pumpy", and we'd invent various stories that Old Pumpy would narrate via the voice of Morgan Freeman. Hang in there...
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