NICU day 4

I love the circled wagons gals, thank you so so much. G-d, does it help.

Things seem to move in slow motion in the NICU. Daniela had another EEG this morning and we're waiting for the results to be read. However, we had a nice nurse on duty this morning and she was kind enough to whisper to me (one of those "you didn't hear it from me"s) that the tech told her (on the sly as well) there was no seizure activity noted during the EEG. Hurrah! What lovely news. That makes it almost 18 hours or so with no seizure activity noted (knock wood). Perhaps that means that it's starting to taper off as the doctors anticipated and that her brain edema is decreasing also as anticipated.

The MRA is about to be done shortly. I just called to give them permission to do the test (it seems they forgot to get it from me when we were there earlier) so hopefully it'll be done in a little while.

Everything else is pretty much status quo. She remains on the vent but entirely on room air. She's taking a good deal of breaths on her own despite the vent. She's still loaded up on phenobarbitol and heavily sedated. Grandma came with us this morning and finally got to see her newest granddaughter. Grandmas are good about not seeing the tubes and machinery, you know?

As for how I'm doing, I'm trying to hang on, I really am but I often find myself whirling and swirling in a sea of doubt. Did this happen because of something I did? Something I didn't do? Could it have been prevented? All that time she was quiet and didn't move alot in utero, had she already had the stroke and that's why she was oftentimes so sedate in there?

I'm trying to put on my "happy" everything's okay face in front of Juliana...whose favorite thing to do nowadays to ask mama to sit on the floor with her and play. It's one of our daily routines. Alas, the floor is so incredibly uncomfortable on my battered girl bits that it's been all but impossible but I'm trying. She's been home with her grandmother here for the past 4 days. We took her to daycare this morning to get back to her normal routine and she was devastated. A said it was the first time he came close to losing it, walking out of there to the vision of her burying her head in her teacher's neck, crying in a soft manner. When he came home and told me that, forget it. I was a goner, yet again.

So much swirling and whirling. Crying. Trying to hold it together, wondering if I'm riding the slippery slope of PPD downward or if it's just the hormonal post-delivery crash. I'm not sure which it is.

I remember when my biggest concern during this pregnancy was whether or not I could love a second child as much I love Juliana. Many of you reassured me that I would. And you know what? You were so right, so incredibly on the mark. I realized when she came out that I loved her from the second I found out we were pregnant. Absolutely amazing that love.

Last night as we drove home from the hospital, A said to me "When I see the look in your eyes when you look at her and how you dote on her, I fall in love with you all over again." By g-d, I don't know what I ever did to get this incredible man in my life, but wow, did I win one in the husband lottery.