The End is Near

If you read my wife's blog then you know that Hester is getting close to discharge. It looks like this Sunday or Monday if things go well with the final treatments. So far, it has gone really smoothly over the past week. Hester is feeling great and happy as can be.

We are just so thrilled to have this journey come to an end. Last night, a per diem nurse who has cared for Hester on occasion said good bye to us. With hugs and kisses, she told us we are her favorite parents and Hester is her favorite girl in the NICU. Her outpouring of emotion was unexpected but so very sweet. It is funny to feel sadness to not be around all our new acquaintances of the nurses on the entire floor and that we will not see all the new born babies around us or the teeny tiny preemies.

We had a bit of a scare last night. I was changing Hester and getting her ready for her bottle, including 1/2 oz of breast milk (pumped all day long), and I noticed dried drainage on her ear and that it was red, hot, and swollen. The nurse was disturbed by it too so she called the pediatrician. He came and looked at her ear and said everything was OK, that it was just ear wax liquefying and draining out. Weird. But the best thing was she was OK.

Tuesday, this week, one of the first things I did was put in for my maternity leave. I am taking a month off starting the end of this week. I have only three more rides on the train and one more alarm at 5 AM to catch the train. I am thrilled to have the time off to bond with my family and relax.

I keep hearing "you better sleep now cause when she comes home, you'll get no rest." That really makes me angry because for the past nearly 7 weeks, I have gotten no rest. Neither of us have. We are at the hospital with her, often spending the night, getting up for her feedings or to soothe her, getting up at ungodly hours to then go to work, working all day, then rushing back to the hospital to do it again. And on the days we do not spend the night, we are struggling to drive home awake, getting there around 11 PM and starting over again at 5 AM. I think being home more than 1-2 nights a week, not juggling work duties and intern training, and no train rides will be much more restful even if Hester is cluster feeding all night every night. I will be home again, with my cats and dog, with my wife, with my daughter, sitting on my couch, looking at the walls we painted, showering in my shower, eating food we make. I think I will be more rested.

The other thing that pissed me off is my boss insisting that I will get nothing done because I will be so tired from no rest. Doesn't she know that if you say "you can't" to me makes me say, "Oh yes the fuck I will, just watch me?" I plan to work on revising a paper for publication and sending it off, writing two brief essays for a national internship site application, and write a policy paper with Clementine for publication. And if any of you say, "Oh, you'll be too tired" you will just add fuel to my fire to get this stuff done and show everyone that doubted me that I can.

The feelings I have about bringing Hester home and really bonding with her as a mother are so complex, they defy words. When I am not so freaking tired, I want to write more about it. The irritation at others is much easier to write about right now. Those feelings are simple and familiar. All these changes in me, my role, my identity, my boobs, I feel them and know them but the words for them are lost to my half mast eyes. Give me a few more days for a deep meaningful post.

Oh, here is Hester! She is wearing scrubs to match me!!