Gratitude

Yesterday evening I went back to the NICU where my girls stayed. One of them for four days, the other for a little over three months. It was good to see the doctors and the nurses. They were amazed by how big my girl has grown. From 1lb 7oz to 15lb 8oz. Quite a change.

I am so very, very grateful.

That they saved a baby who should have died.

Yet it was hard to go back there. Where we nearly lost both our children and where one of our daughters slipped away from us. Into that strange, twilight world of monitors and alarms.

If you have ever seen a very premature baby, you will know how unprepared they are for life in the outside world. How tiny they are. How frail they are. Those wizened limbs. Those wise faces. My girls. I can't imagine that I will ever summon up the same desperate, aching love that I felt for you both. Not ever again. So vulnerable, surrounded by your machines. Those machines that could do so much for you than I could.

I am so grateful that your daddy persuaded me to go to the hospital. I did not want to hear that I had lost you. I thought that if I just stayed at home, everything would be alright.
Of course, if I had stayed at home you would both have died very quickly.

I am so grateful that the neonatologists on duty that awful morning took the decision to work on babies who were not yet 24 weeks gestation. In the early hours of morning. I am so grateful that they took that chance.

I am so grateful that they had the skill to stabilise you both, against the odds.

I am so grateful that there was somewhere to stay in the hospital so we didn't have to leave you when the situation was so unstable. So that when the doctors thought that they were losing you, we could simply run up stairs and be there. Useless but there.

I am so grateful that I had those few days when I had both my girls with me. I am so glad that I got to see both my children open their eyes.

I am so grateful that you passed away in your daddy's arms and not during those panic stricken moments in the middle of the night.

I am so grateful that your sister was only a few metres away when you died. She was with you when you died, just as she was with you when you were born and for nearly all the entire span of your short life.

I am so grateful for the compassion of the medical staff in the room with us that day.

I have so very, very, very much to be grateful for. I am so very lucky.

But I don't always feel lucky. Not all the time.

I am greedy. I wanted both my girls.