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We were so lucky that our sweet boy only needed to be in the special care unit for a little over a week. On Friday the week after he was born, we were given the all clear to head home.

It was a huge relief, because we were way over being in the hospital. The only reason he had stayed as long as he did was that he was struggling to keep up his own body temperature. He had gained back almost all his weight from birth, and was only one ounce less when we left the hospital.

We knew it was a miracle he was doing so well. The special care nurses kept saying that he was a little guy acting like a big boy. The worst had been the two days they had him on the special lights to try and lower his bilirubin levels (to fend off jaundice). He looked like a super cute glow worm/rockstar in the little sunglasses they had made for him. But we weren’t allowed to hold him much. 

It broke my heart to see him hooked up to all the monitors and off-limits. It was difficult to find time to hold him or do skin-to-skin between him being in there and the fact that I was pumping around the clock.

In the early days after my own discharge, which happened on the Monday after he was born, the “weepies” as I called them had set in as my hormones shifted. I was perpetually crying at every little thing. It became even more difficult when my husband had to return to work (it made more sense for him to take extra time off work after we got home. At the hospital our boy was being taken excellent care of whether or not we were there.) and I was left alone in my hospital room without either of my boys for the first time. 

On the first day of being there alone, the doctors came in and talked to me about the possibility of taking our little guy home in a matter of days, which left me overwhelmed by the enormity of caring for him. I hadn’t been able to breastfeed him much, which had been our plan. How would I manage to figure that out at home alone? Would we have to give him formula too? Would he be able to keep his temperature up? How would I know if he was okay without being able to see his vitals at all times? 

Thankfully the nurses could see the overwhelm in my face and made sure to reassure me that they would not send him home until we were all sure he would be taken good care of. Those nurses were incredible, taking such good care of our boy, but also teaching us so much about the special care that a preterm baby required. They made sure we understood the feeding technique with a bottle, and they, along with the lactation consultants, assisted me in becoming more comfortable with breastfeeding (something I didn’t realize about preterm babies is that breastfeeding can easily wear them out. It’s something they have to work up to, hence my need to pump around the clock to keep my supply up. I will be writing a whole post in the future about that learning experience!). They encouraged my husband and I to help change our little guy’s diapers and clothes and be as involved as possible in his care.

My emotions kept my brain swirling with anxieties and doubts about my abilities to care for my baby. At first I was just immensely self-conscious by how little I knew about preterm baby care. I was overthinking things and afraid to become involved. I quickly realized that I needed to get over myself and accept with humility that I was new at this and I would be clumsy at first, but the more I practiced and the more I learned, the better and more confidently I would be able to take care of my baby at home. I eventually decided to bring my pump into our baby’s room during the day so I could spend most of the day in there, going back to my room only to eat and sleep. That helped me spend more time with him, and also learn more and gain more confidence in my ability to care for him. 

At one point I worried that he wouldn’t know I was his mother because of how little we’d been able to bond and all the wonderful nurses who had seemed to care for him better than I could. My husband gently made sure I knew how ridiculous that thought was. Still, I had to remind myself frequently that though I was not an expert at feeding him or changing him or bathing him, I was an expert at loving him. Yes, I would inevitably make mistakes while trying to do what was best for him, but I would always love the crap out of him. And even though the nurses were all enamored by his cuteness and genuinely cared for his well being, they couldn’t and wouldn’t ever love him like I do.

By the time the day came to take him home, we were so ready. Ready to be free of the hospital. Ready to start our new chapter as a family of three. We were nervous like any new parents, but so ready.

As my husband went to pull the car around, the nurse who had accompanied us out asked, “So will we be seeing you all again in another year or two?” It took me a minute to realize she was referring to us having another kid. I laughed and answered, “We’ll see. We need to figure out what went wrong this time and see what we can do to prevent it from happening again.”

When we were all safely in the car and heading home, my husband in the driver’s seat, our baby boy in the middle seat sleeping soundly as if he were made for a car seat, and me next to him on the passenger side, I relayed the interaction with the nurse.

My husband immediately replied, “Nothing went wrong! Everything that happened brought us this perfect kid and we wouldn’t trade that for anything, right?” He was right, and the beauty of the moment made me tear up as I gazed at the face of our perfect, sleeping miracle.

When I saw the doctor this week for my two-week follow-up, we gained some more insight into what caused my complications. During my C-section, I remember being on the table and hearing my doctor asking the surgeon if she could take a picture of my uterus, which was clearly bicornuate, or heart-shaped. (She shared it with us later and it looked like a creepy valentine.) I heard them examining the placenta and discussing my innards, but at the moment I was way too preoccupied with the little life that had been living in there for the last 8 months. I knew she would fill us in with details later.

Fill us in she did. We had expected that I had a septum in my uterus (an extra piece of muscle separating my uterus into two sides) that could be removed simply in an outpatient procedure to help prevent future miscarriage and possible complications. As it turns out, there was no septum, just a clearly bicornuate uterus, which means two clearly separate horns, or cavities. That was why very early on when I started bleeding, the two sides appeared to be functioning independently of each other—our little boy was implanted and growing on the left, and the lining on the right was shedding almost like a normal period as if I wasn’t pregnant.

That initial bleed led to the subsequent hematomas, the hematomas led to the placental abruption, the abruption led to the premature rupturing of my water. The doctor told me that there was no surgery, no interventions that could be done to prevent it all happening again. Any subsequent pregnancies of mine would be high risk. Everything could happen like it did this time, or it could be completely fine with no complications, or it could be way worse and end in greater complications or even a loss. She even told me something she didn’t want to tell me before—when she initially reached out to MFM (maternal fetal medicine, the specialists who monitor high risk pregnancies) they told her straight up that I would have a loss in the second trimester.

That information hit heavily. I looked at our baby boy and said with more certainty than ever before, “So he really is a true miracle.” It’s been a lot to let sink in, and I think we’re still processing it, but for now we are even more incredibly grateful for our sweet boy and even more thoroughly enjoying our time with him. We are even more convinced that all of the prayers and support of all of you who have shared this journey with us are what carried us as far as we did and brought our sweet boy home safely!  THANK YOU!

It’s still a lot to take in, and I don’t think we’ll really fully process it until we reach a point of wanting to try for another baby. It will be something that will require a whole lot of thought, prayer, and consideration with the knowledge we have now of how things could possibly turn out. We are nowhere near that point right now though. For now, we are incredibly relieved that I am no longer pregnant, and that our baby is in our arms and no longer in my belly.

Our little miracle is home and adjusting well to his new life here as he grows before our very eyes (he gained half a pound in his first four days at home!) and I am slowly adjusting to life outside a hospital again. In the first 24 hours I was afraid to leave him alone in case he suddenly stopped breathing (again, I was used to having him monitored constantly!), and every time I went to leave the bedroom, I reached to put my mask on my face before remembering that I was home and I didn’t need to. #pandemiclife

It’s all a little surreal how it all turned out. Because my emotions are still somewhat unstable, I’m trying not to think about it all too much right now, and instead focusing on our baby boy and taking in each beautiful day with him.