Five Days Old

Five days old today. Don and I are relieved and excited with the passing of each new day, each morning we arrive to see Nyana’s nurse and learn of no major developments through the night. The IV lines in her belly button were removed yesterday afternoon, and we’d been promised that today would be the day that we’d been waiting for.

After a quick hello and goodbye visit for our friend Marty, Nyana’s nurse Gurlie asked if we wanted to hold her. Such a wonderful question. Do I want to hold her? Do I love chocolate? Do I need to breathe??

I was terrified. Excited and anxious and eager and terrified. She’s connected to tubes and machines and wires; I have no idea what does what and whether anything hurts her. But Gurlie methodically disconnected the lines, and after preparing me in the glider chair, so effortlessly lifted this tiny little human out of her incubator and placed her on my chest.

Such an amazing feeling. (See? There’s that word “amazing” again.) After just a small amount of fussing, Nyana found herself a comfortable place and settled into a soft lull on my lap. I was in heaven. I stroked her head and her back, cradling her tiny bum and her legs in my other hand. Even so little, she looked so peaceful there with me, like this was the reason she’d escaped the womb so early to begin with. I could have sat there forever like that, just whispering nothings to her, completely lost in her awesomeness and forgetting that she is weak and needing much more than just her mother’s touch.

I know they won’t all be good days in the NICU, but today was our first real victory. Here’s hoping for many more days like today.