Preemie Life - Day 35 Is Isn't Over....

With my brother around playing guitar I've manged to fulfill my life's wish of having my own theme track.  I've always been jealous of TV shows in that respect.  Mostly my days are full of Johnny Cash (D enjoys trying out songs that highlight his laryngitis but another favorite is Adele's "Someone Like You."  Surprisingly the tract runs through my mind almost nonstop.  I feel like it is my mantra.  I love her voice and her ability to connect with the deepest part of our human emotions and while I've outgrown the "looking for new romances" part of my life, heartaches has become my constant companion.  My favorite lines, the ones that speak most powerfully to me are...

'You'd know, how the time flies.  Only yesterday, was the time of our lives. We were born and raised in a summery haze.  Bound by the surprise of our glory days.  I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.  I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded, That for me, it isn't over."

And that pretty much sums up this preemie life for me this week.  Today when we were visiting with the doctor she told us that Cheetah is growing nicely and that they are moving her from straight iron supplementation to a general poly sol vitamin and that instead of being on human breast milk fortification they will be moving to just a general formula order if by chance they run out of breast milk, which if you could see the state of both my freezer and theirs you'd know is quite unlikely!  It was fairly good news about her general progression but then Dr. J had to spoil the moment with these words, "So do you think she's going to come home before Christmas, what are the odds, can you give us a percentage?"  And like that all the goodness was sucked from the room.  The doctor and nurse both got very awkward and evasive and as they gave us the run around about five days incident free and 48 hours of only mouth feeds, the nurse said, "It isn't likely, but we can always hope."  And with those words, the balloon of hope that I'd been carrying around in my chest burst and I started to tear up.  I looked down at Cheetah who I was nursing and thanked them both and luckily they walked out of the room so that I could have a moment to silently cry.  You see the difficulty in my life is that for me "It isn't over."  When I was a kid my mother was very strict about not allowing me to wear makeup before I was 14, but when I hit that point I became an almost constant makeup wearer.  When I married my husband he made me feel so beautiful in my natural state that I decided it was only necessary on Sunday's or special occasions when people outside the family were most likely to see me and make comments like, "Your looking tired, are you feeling ok?"  and so as a rule I never go to church without it!  But since the birth of Cheetah I haven't worn it one single day and I told my brother today it was because I just can't stomach the lie of it, because I am tired.  I am not ok.  I can't  handle putting on the face that it is.  I got snippity with my mom this week.  She was being enthusiastic, overjoyed at one of Cheetah's recent achievements, and I just felt overwhelmed by her positivity.  Don't get me wrong, I am happy for the achievements that Cheetah makes.  I thank Heavenly Father that she has been blessed to not have one single set back.  I recognize the miracle that is her birth and the fact that she flourishes like a hardy rose and yet at the same time I feel slightly bruised by the abundance of optimism because it builds in me this sense that she should be home, and she isn't.  She is still a half hour drive away.  She lives in a room of alarms and monitors.  Her cries are meet with the touch of strangers instead of being soothed in the arms of her mother.   And so I ask you to forgive me this flaw, this inability to pull myself out of depression, to have random fits of tears, to walk around like a tired, sad, zombie when I have a beautiful flourishing daughter, I know I should have more cheer, but for me right now, in this moment, it isn't over.