4 Weeks ago...

Well four weeks ago tonight I went into labor. I never imagined going down the path we are currently on.

I am so thankful, and so in love with Maggie. Her health has improved by leaps and bounds, when I look at her I forget how sick she was and how she still is healing.

Looking back the last four weeks have been very hard. It's hard to not be living the reality I had imagined for the past 9 months. It hurts that we didn't experience the birth we had envisioned. I had wanted a waterbirth at home with lots of bonding time with our newborn baby. Instead I experienced a hospital c-section with 45 minutes of being able to look at my baby and touch her but not hold her before she was flown to another hospital. I then spent 2 days in a different hospital without seeing her. Once released, my visits with her were hard, all I wanted was to hold her and love on her and I could only look at her and occasionally touch her, I had to wait a week before I could hold her. Seeing her everyday on all those machines broke my heart time and time again.

This experience was far from what I wanted, and I feel robbed, I feel a sense of loss when I think about it. I think I just want to say that out loud. In my heart I know Maggie deserved a much better start at life than what she has gotten. I want to give her warmth, comfort, love and security, she should have gotten that immediately after being born. Im sorry that she was poked and prodded instead.

Even now, everyday is a challenge as we wait for her to heal and progress to a state that she can come home with us and thrive. The commute is wearing, as is the hospital itself. There is no escaping the worry and the wondering. But one look at Maggie and I know it is all worth it.

Im so happy that she can now be held, and I want to hold her all the time, I feel like all the time I spend holding her now makes up for all the time in that first week I couldn't hold her.