Belly Buttons and Signs from Above

As the days go by, I think I'll go more and more insane. I'd rather be home, on my couch, holding my baby, with the warm breezes blowing in the window. Instead, we sit all day here in the NICU...cuddling in a rather comfortable chair. It's no substitute. It's not home. There are beeps in the background and other babies crying. Doctors and nurses are always milling about. And my baby is wired.

I'm always looking for signs. I'm a true believer in signs. Not so long ago, I had a dream. It was right before my last observation at work. I dreamt that I'd walked into my preobservation conference and announced that, "I got nothin." The idea of it was absurd! I'd had a lesson already planned! But when that day rolled around, I'd somehow mixed up my work computer and my home computer and brought in the wrong one...leaving my work computer at home with all of my documents, including the ones I needed for the conference. I had nothing! Luckily, Joe was waiting in the wings to save me via email.



So it's no surprise that my biggest fear of this pregnancy early on was that I'd had a baby with a heart problem. I've been following the following blogs for years:

Sew Liberated
Wonderbliss
MckMama

All of them have heart stories to tell...and I only started reading one for the heart story, because our little ones were so close in age. The other two, I read for other reasons...sewing and teaching!

And when a child in my class this year had a sister born with a hole in her heart, I had a feeling...so when my 20 week ultrasound rolled around, I was relieved that my baby looked fine. Perhaps it's beyond this though. Perhaps this was the universe's way of preparing me for having a baby in the NICU, even without a heart issue. Perhaps it was for Maura's seizures...

Yesterday, Maura lost her umbilical cord stub. It's been one month and 3 days that she held on to it. So when we saw her smiling little button, we thought, perhaps, it's time for Maura to come home. I thought it was a sign.

Then I came in this morning and she had a seizure last night. This doesn't quite seal her fate her in the NICU for a longer stay, but it makes me sad none the less. This is not what I want to see. I'm hoping it was a fluke. Maura needs to come home!