Roller Coaster

There's something to be said about bad days in the NICU. The meaning of them changes the healthier your child  becomes. The first days of Jaden's life were the hardest on me. I was overcome with so many emotions; my body going crazy from the swift change in hormones, my mind racing to make sense of what just happened, my heart in constant fear of being broken. Back then a day he was still alive was a great day, even in all its roughness. I lived in a constant flux of fear and happiness.

As time passed, I became more relaxed. I learned to enjoy the small moments of normalcy we began to experience. The grand moments were that much more treasured. From the first time I held him to the first time I dressed him in his tiny clothes, nothing went uncelebrated. But throughout that time, the roller coaster ride of life in the NICU raced on. Bad days ran the gamut of collapsed lungs, failed extubation attempts, infection scares and backslides with breathing machines. Thankfully, the good days occur more often. Good days are the slow, clanking, metal part of the roller coaster ride, propelling us through the twists and turns and even dark tunnels of the rest of the ride. They give us momentum and without them we'd never leave the gate. 

As we get closer to a time when Jaden will join us at home, His bad days are less frequent. However, they still shake me as they always have. Today was a bad day for my little one. When they couldn't get him to breathe enough or get his heart rate up they had to bag him.--I'm sure you've seen ER or Grey's so you know what I mean--It took quite a while to get him back to normal and even after that, his brady spells were still much bigger than they've been. I was concerned to say the least.

And so I looked for the next slow, clanking, metal part of the track. It didn't need it to be too big as the finish line is already in site. I just needed a little more momentum. And then it came--our small moment that got me through the day and propelled me to tomorrow. My little man completed his first whole bottle. Not only that, but he did it without a brady spell. And better yet, I was feeding him. We had done it together! He smiled. I smiled. God smiled down on us. And our ride continued on.