Phantom Cries

During our time in the NICU we would hear babies crying often. Not just the babies in our POD but any of the 25 to 30 babies in care there. You got used to it as background noise. We would work hard to keep G quiet as much as we could, just to keep him from adding to the noise there, and help the other babies stay calm.

Well we’ve been home from the NICU for almost 4 months now, and I still hear babies crying the way we did in the NICU. We have phantom cries here all the time. I will be in the shower with G sleeping peacefully when I go in, and all of the sudden I’ll hear a baby whailing, pop my head out of the shower, and stare at the monitor to see that it’s still dim, and G is sleeping peacefully. I also hear them after I’ve put Gray back down after his 4am feeding. He’s sleeping peacefully but I can swear I hear a baby crying. And it’s not just me. Brian will wake up in the middle of the night and go to G’s room to find him sleeping like an angel.

I’m not sure how long this will last, we thought it would be gone by now but it’s not. I often wonder if the NICU nurses have the same issue when they go home. Who knows. Any other NICU moms have this going on too?

G is sleeping peacefully now for the afternoon – moving to a 4 hour feeding schedule at least in the afternoons now. So I’m going to get some work done around the house while he’s sleeping. I’m happy to have a bit of productive time now.

Wont Let Go

Even though I’m done my time on bedrest for right now (who knows what my next pregnancy will bring), I still try and support those who I’ve connected with and the group I connected with as often as I can. During my 11 weeks in bed I think I went through every emotion you possibly could. I felt the guilt of the fact that my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to be doing. The fear of the unknown, the elation when G would kick to reassure me he was okay.

I was reading the KeepEm'Cooking forum tonight and my heart was breaking for some of these moms who have been on bedrest for weeks upon weeks and are so close to the end. Or those who are just starting and have what seems to be an impossible amount of time before they get to hold their little ones.

For all of you this conveys every hope and wish and thought I have for you:




I know that Angela feels the same way. We’re here to hold your hand, and stand by you, and help you through those rough days and weeks. We’re here to help you cope with the emotions and understand exactly what you’re going through when no one else does.

We’re here to fight with you, to support you when we can and however we can. We love you, and your little one even from far away. We’re always praying and always just a click away.

Keep fighting, keep holding on for your little ones. Every day, every moment matters, and when you need us we’re here to help.

And for those of you who have met your little one sooner than expected, these words are for you too. I spent my nights in the NICU, and sat by my son wondering. And I know every emotion that you could have. I am always here to support you, no matter what.

What I can Accomplish

I have never been into ‘babywearing’. Not 100% sure why but when G was on the inside I was not ever planning on buying a sling or a wrap at all. Thing however changed when he was a preemie with a compromised immune system. I needed to protect G from the people who come up and try to take babies out of others arms to snuggle them.I don’t have an issue with it normally, most people respect boundaries, but with a preemie who has a compromised immune system I thought if we had one more barrier to stop people from doing so it would be a bit better and put me a bit more at ease. So when G was still in the NICU and we were out at babies R us looking at strollers I decided to look at the carriers they have. I got this great wrap from Maman Kangaroo. I love that you can use it so many ways – a big thing in my life is multi-purpose.

Since that day in February, both G and I have fallen in love with our wrap.  We can do so many things now with it. We go and check the mail, we can cook dinner, we can even do a load of laundry – it’s a bit of a gymnastics move to reach the bottom of the washwer when G is sleeping but it we’ve figured it out.

There are mornings where all G wants to do is snuggle, like today, and I need to get things done around the house, so we hang out in our wrap and snuggle and feel productive too. I love that I can have him tummy to tummy with me, or have him in a cradle hold. And when he’s bigger he can sit looking out at the world.

Well my sleeping bean is waking up and probably wants to see some sunshine. So we’ll head out and water our vegetable garden on the back deck.

What G HATES!

Gray hates being wet, and I mean HATES. The only thing he might dislike more is being intubated but we haven’t tried that since day 4 and 5 of his life. We have confirmed that cloth is a better option for us, since we change disposables as often as we change cloth it seems.
I have however found something that will get us a few extra minutes out of a cloth diaper, and helps us get through the night without a diaper change. Bummis fleece liners totally do the trick. When G is soaking wet and has a liner in, the wetness passes right through the liner and it doesn’t feel wet at all. It can be a little deceiving when you don’t think he’s wet because the liner doesn’t feel wet at all.

I love all things Bummis! I like that they’re a Canadian company, and I like the integrity that they use when it comes to organic or recycled products and doing what’s best for the environment as well as the consumer. Bummis felt liners have been a life saver when it comes to wet diapers and a particular someone who doesn’t like being wet.

We have a few other things that we use and a few other brands that we use but Bummis seems to be our go to brand.  If you have a picky baby like mine they're definitley worth a try.

The Upside of Being Tiny

This past week we changed over Gray’s dresser by putting all this 0 to 3 month clothes in and taking out the smallest of his newborn clothes. He’s 4 and a half months old and about 10lbs now. There is an upside to him being so tiny.

The blessing of him being so tiny is that his heart has time to heal. He was born with a PDA heart murmur; he has a small hole in between the top two chambers of his heart. It is the most common heart issue for preemies or even full term babies. Our medical team told us that it usually takes until the baby would be year old for the hole to heal completely, and about 6 to 8 months for the doctors to no longer be able to hear it with a stethoscope. At our appointment at the beginning of June the paediatrician noticed that he can’t hear the murmur anymore. Amazing news! 

This is the upside of G being so tiny still. Because he hasn’t grown fast and needing his heart to grow to support his growth, his heart has had time to heal the hole a lot faster than anticipated.

We prayed and claimed healing for this back in the hospital, and I love that we’re heading back to Brampton soon to see the cardiologist to see what we’re looking at. I love that my God is bigger than what medicine says, and great than their timeline.

I promise I will never complain about Gray being so small again.

A Weekend Away

This weekend I left Gray with Brian overnight. We have an annual women’s conference at our church and I had invited my amazing sister in law Leah to join me for the weekend. We decided that we would make it a girl’s weekend, use our hotel points and get a hotel room and leave the husbands with the boys and just get away. It turned out to be perfect timing with some things that have been going on our lives and needing a little get away and some distractions. So away we went.

 I was a bit nervous, but decided to just be as Zen as I could. I knew that I had left more than enough milk for Brian and that he’s more than capable of taking care of Gray. I guess I was more nervous about how I would be away from G for so long. It’s the longest that I have ever been away from him. Usually it’s two or three hours that I’ll be gone in an evening or for a spa appointment. I remember the days in the NICU when the 8 hours we would take to go home and do some laundry and repack would drive me crazy and I would be so anxious to get back to the NICU and back to Gray.

I did have a few moments of weakness, especially in the evening when I wanted to come and take Gray with me for the final hours of the conference, but I prevailed and made it through the weekend.

Brian had more than enough milk, and had a great time just him and Gray. He also gained some understanding of what some of my days are like.

It was a great weekend away. Great to sleep in a hotel and not have to wake up to a screaming baby but to silence, and a great time spent with my sister in law.