All of January and most of February of this year was spent laboring over Virginia's feeding. Our baby was no longer in critical condition but we had been in the NICU long enough to know that feeding was a big hurdle and had long term implications. We no longer had the healthy naivety that helped us emotionally get through the first part of our journey. By January we were well read and fully immersed in the possible realities as parents of a micro preemie. In short we were scared out of our minds.
Virginia's feeding struggles brought to light the many unknowns that we would be faced with and was a good lesson in patience. For me the anguish over her feeding troubles weren't about feeding, it was the anguish about the unknowns in our new reality. The unnatural things like the ventilator, the pumps lined up of IV medications, the PICC lines, and the mountains of xray and ultrasound reports were all mostly behind us, but the reality of how unnatural the should be natural things was staring us directly in the face.
We did and continue to do the only thing we know how - put one foot in front of the other and enjoy each day with our beautiful blessing.
the first full bottle that Virginia ever took for me.
Virginia had to be fed sitting up and we had to carefully help her pace herself.
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