Today is 24 weeks...I don't exhale, relax, or think...yes, we've made it! But it is a milestone that I'm grateful to reach, at home. For all of you in neonatal land, you know what I'm talking about. For the others...until today, there was a 0% chance for Jack to be born & survive. Now this is a chance, albeit a small one, that if he was born, he could survive with maximum intervention. This "maximum intervention" is part of my job and I am intimately aware of the journey. Intimately aware, but not emotionally aware, because I have never stood by the bed of my own precious premature baby, feeling what I have observed so many times. When it's your job, you can & must compartmentalize it, so you can go back day after day, year after year and help where it is in your realm to help. When my mind goes there, terror seizes my heart and I leave that place as quickly as I can, talking to Jack & telling him that I will do everything in my power for him to be born in December, full-term!
Don't get me wrong, it's not easy to sit here, waiting. Yes, I fill the hours with semi-productive activities, especially sleep. I don't dwell too much on the future, just today. Mr. Tarheel is a big help, spending all his non-work, non-sleeping hours creating little mental diversions to distract me. He has told me the history of the Spartan/Persian war with a side discussion of using terrain to your advantage in battle. Then we watched the movie 300 and I actually liked it. We sit and watch the cows each day and here he told me the history of the development of the black and red Angus breeds in England and I had no idea he knew all this. We talk about where we want to travel and where will be the best places to take Jack at different ages. We agree that a toddler shouldn't and won't go on an 18 hour plane trip! We discuss parenting and I'm in awe of his introspection about what it takes to be a good parent. We wait together....for Jack.
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