2nd child in NICU

 After three losses I finally gave birth to my second child. After four days of labor I had him at 36 weeks 6 days which was basically 6 hours premature. We have been in the NICU for nearly 20 days now. Waiting on his car seat check here in a few hours. If he passes we'll finally be able to take him home.

I have mixed feelings about going home. I don't see the NICU as a scary place. I see it as a safe place. While not sleeping much is not good for my mental health, interacting with people is. I'm pretty sure all the night nurses know me and I've enjoyed getting to know them. If my son's oxygen drops too much there's three nurses right here to help him. I can trust that someone who knows what they're doing is taking care of my child so I can get rest. Everyone thinks I'm so anxious because I'm worried about my baby in the NICU, but really it's just my inner demons, hormones, PTSD, etc.

I've really only had two negative experiences over the course of the three weeks we've been in the NICU. The first one I walked in to the nurse practitioner trying to do her assessment on my son. He was screaming hysterically and she couldn't get him to calm down. I asked if I could hold him for a minute to calm him down, but I wasn't allowed to. Her explanation for why he was irritable was because of the medications I was on during pregnancy. I was thinking just because you can't calm my kid down doesn't mean he's irritable. I began to cry a lot. Tears were falling from my eyes to my son's blanket as I was holding him.

Shortly after the Dr came in and asked why I was upset. I told her and she said don't own that. We don't know if your meds caused any problems at all, but all the research says to stay on psych meds. She really made me feel better. She said just because you take meds doesn't mean you shouldn't have kids. You're a great mother. There are plenty of people that don't need to have kids. You're not one of them.