The Hits Keep Coming
Today marks Alan's fourth day in the NICU and progress has slowed. From what we can understand we'll likely be discharged from the hospital prior to his release from intensive care. Its a bitter blow for us, especially Angie, who in spite of her cool exterior is truly hurt to think we may be going home without him.

On Being A Parent
Becoming a parent gives you a true moment of clarity. It’s very lonely and isolating but its like becoming a different person and achieving a new level of growth. However, with Alan being in the NICU we feel detached, and in some ways, not parents at all. We sit in our hospital room by ourselves, resting and watching movies as if the whole thing never happened. We visit him every 3 hours for feeding and then start the process over again.

His condition is a fairly normal one for children in the NICU, but most cases are not for term babies. He is healthy looking, feeling and is feeding well but in the end he’s still just a few days old and his system is still recovering from stress in utero. His system is still growing and maturing and the organs that are used to process sugars are getting in line every day. It looks as if we’ll be leaving the hospital on Monday, but we’ll be leaving him behind if he does not make big strides in the next 24 hours. The nurse practitioner encouraged us and gave us a lot of positive energy, but told us that in the event we do leave the hospital without him it would be “the worst day of our lives.”

Being a parent has been wonderful but full of emotion and confusion. We can hardly sleep between times we visit him and nervously await his next progress report.