Not really sure where to put most of this story, but I do feel like my birth was a bit traumatic so... Before my little boy was born my husband and I had talked about his birth, we wanted privacy, time to process and no family around until after we had bonded. Well, when I went into spontaneous labor and my water ruptured at 26 weeks, we knew most of those plans would be out the window. Now it was just about keeping the baby in long enough for the steroids to do their work. I spent 10 days on hospital bed rest before my labor resumed and I was taken in for an emergency c section. Sometime in the past 24 hours, my son had turned breech and was beginning to struggle. Family was called and within the hour I was in the OR. He was born at 27 weeks and 4 days with a birth weight of 1.9 lbs or 900 grams. Although the curtain was lowered, they had to whisk him away so quickly I never got to see my baby. I insisted my husband go with him while I was stitched up. A little while later I am in recovery and they tell me they can wheel me in to see my baby for the first time in the NICU, that he is stabilized. The second they get my bed to the door, they can't even get me inside because my mother in law and sister in law are somehow already in the NICU. I still can't see my baby very well, because the incubator won't get low enough. I ask for the room to be cleared and instead of doing the decent thing and leaving my in laws stand just outside the door and comment on how "precious the look on my face is" as I strain to catch a glimpse of my child underneath the wires. It all felt so horrible and wrong. A majority of his first pictures have them posing in the background.

Luckily, my baby, William, is doing very well so far, and has had few complications. I am struggling as a new NICU mom, and am finding it hard to deal with a lot of emotions right now. So much of it still doesn't feel real and so much went wrong. But my baby is growing, and I get to hold him once a day now, I don't know how I will come to terms with my birth story, but I am hoping one day when I have him home I will.