Light

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life."Proverbs 13:12

Adah has been HOME now for 7 weeks! She spent 50 days (too long) in the NICU mostly just trying to gain weight. It was without a doubt the hardest season of my life and I am incredibly thankful to be on the other side of that suffering and waiting period. 

All the darkness that I felt, all the despair, all the crying I did, has now made every moment spent with my sweet girl richer and more joyful than I could ever have imagined. Where I once felt a crushing weight on my heart every single day for 50 days, I now feel light and more happiness than I have ever felt before.

I get to hold my daughter every day, every second of the day if I want. I don't hold her every second but I do hold her a lot and it is awesome. :) If my daughter cries, I get to comfort her. She no longer has to get blood drawn every week and we no longer have to drive 20 minutes to see her. She gets to sleep near us and if we drive somewhere, she goes with us. We definitely have our rough moments, especially when Adah cries and we have no idea why, but this feels normal. We actually feel like parents now. We get to be sleep deprived and clean dirty diapers and figure out ways to entertain our baby. It is wonderful. :-)

There are definitely still hard things that are part of our new normal. Adah is currently the size of a small newborn but to us she is a giant. Its been funny to have strangers comment on her size and know that they just have no idea how far she's come. We know that it will be a different experience for us to watch Adah meet various developmental milestones because some of the time she will meet them at her adjusted age and sometimes she may meet them at her actual age. So, don't expect us to do one of those posts where we say how old she is and all the developmentally appropriate stuff she's doing. She's a genius and she will do all those developmental things in her own time. :) It is still hard at times for me to see a pregnant woman or to see pictures of people with their beautiful, full term babies and to be reminded of what I lost out on. However, now I am able to see everything that I have gained from my experiences and I don't feel bitterness (most of the time). I feel thankfulness and strength. I am a much stronger person now and I know that I will be a better mom to Adah because of our experiences. I have a better understanding of how to empathize with people that are suffering and feel confident when I say that someday they will eventually feel better. Time is a wonderful healer.

I don't know if I will write in this blog again but I wanted to give it some closure in case I decided not to write another post. We are beyond grateful to everyone who reached out to us during Adah's NICU stay and were moved to tears many times by seeing how supportive and encouraging people were to us. If you said a kind word to us or prayed for or with us, or were just present with us, we can't ever adequately express how much that meant.

Thanks for reading!