Ankle Rolls: The post where I go home ... and Ella becomes my daughter

So weird, to go home. So lost. Confused. Trying to cling to normalcy but not knowing what the word means, or who I am. I can't drive, but it's almost a relief because I'm not sure I want to go in to see this person who is surreal and not a person to my rational, silently screaming conscious.

I curled up for most of the day, alternately trying to sleep and alternately crying and alternately taking care of my son however I could and alternately trying to make lists and organize, organize, organize my life into sense again. But it was all lost, in the daze of my existence.

I took my son to our annual trick or treating event the next day, the 28th. So odd, to be walking around on the waterfront having undergone major surgery only four days earlier. This heartbreak ebbing in the back of my mind.

So let's move through some days here, sweep them out of the way so I can move forward virtually as I have in reality. I wasn't able to visit Ella every day because I wasn't allowed to drive. At least, theoretically. I started driving again on the 31st, against orders. But I didn't go every day at the beginning. I did call daily, though, several times sometimes. So here are my brief notes:

29: To see Ella — breathing on her own (w/CPAP), stopped my milk. PIC line doing well

30: Ella — was breathing all on her own while nurse was doing care; they took out umbilical cord line because she doesn't need it:) Trying my milk again. L over.

31: To see Ella:) Breathing well. Having Bs — Bradys w/heart. Cries. Breaks my heart. (It was so sad, so unhuman almost. Devastating.)

1: See Ella — meets S Doing well! Sleeping peacefully. 693 grams

2: Ella — Doing well; they've increased my milk to 1cc per hour, auto feed. She's at 703 grams:) (And here's a heartbreaking story: It is this night that my son goes to our French doors, opens them and starts outside. I ask him what he's doing. He tells me he's wishing on a star so that when we go to see his girl the next day, we will be able to bring her home with us. I gently tell him it probably won't happen, and he says, "But Mama, if I don't wish, it'll never happen.")

3: Ella:) (And as we leave, my son says sadly, "I guess my wish isn't going to come true." How do you deal with such understandings by the loves of your life? How can you cope with another overwhelming depth of empathy when every emotion is so fragile, so teetering already?)

4: Ella — 753 grams.

5. To see Ella w/son — Gained weight, but having hard day with oxygen and regulating food. (Scratched out this day is a midwife follow-up appointment. Note the photo below, of Ella being read a Halloween story by her big brother!)

6. R. over. To see before parent support group: Ella — Doing better w/new kind of oxygen. Concerns about possible infection. Monitoring closely, but taking no action for now.