Looking Back One More Time...

Last night, I rocked Maura to sleep in her room.  As I sat there, the pile of consignment items stared back at me from the shadows.  There, on top of the pile, were my favorite maternity jeans.  I'll never wear them again, that's for sure.  So off to consignment they go.  But as I sat there, the moment brought me back in time to the NICU.  I don't know why post partum, and not before, but I remember wearing them at CHOP.  Oddly, I remember waking up the morning we were taking her home and slipping them on....the first morning.  It was so very vivid as I sat there, almost surreal.  There I was, in the bathroom of NIC West, after a shower that hardly livened me up after one of the longest nights of my life, and these jeans were something of comfort...and I slid them on and pretended like I was just fine...like we were just fine...I mean, we were headed home, we were fine!  I didn't know it then.  I didn't even have the inkling of it all, that we'd return two days later.  

It was just a vignette of a moment that I saw flash before me as I sat there, rocking my 16 month old to sleep.  She's so different now than she was then, but as I hold her tiny little body in my arms in the rocker, she's still that sweet baby that I snugged for 35 days in the NICU...and I'm still that same mama, still trying to cope with it all...