As we get ready to celebrate the one year anniversary of Milo leaving the Nicu tomorrow there’s an image I can’t get out of my head.
An empty car seat.
To this day seeing one sends me down a rabbit hole of different emotions.
It’s funny the things that trigger you and the things that don’t after you have experienced trauma.
It’s simple. You go to the hospital to have a baby. Then you give birth, recover a litttle, go home with your squishy sweet baby in that car seat.
Unless you don’t. Some babies stay. You go home with out them. And for the rest of the gut wrenching Painful time that you say good bye to your baby and go home with out them you are surrounded by empty car seats.
Hopeful couples going in with empty car seats and go home with their babies in them. Every day I passed dads speed walking back into the hospital with an empty car seat preparing to go home as I entered or left the nicu for the day. And every time it sucked the wind out of me. A reminder of just how complicated our journey was. How complicated our journey still is. 187 times I walked into the nicu, and left with out my baby.
But on the 188th time, April 22, 2021. With happy tears streaming down my face. I walked into Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s hospital with an empty car seat, and I walked out with Milo in it.
And our lives changed forever.
The Nicu journey didn’t end there. In some ways our lives got so much harder when we walked out those doors.
But let me tell ya. Our lives have burst with joy, happiness, and love.
Happy 1 year homecoming anniversary, Milo.
You are such a wonderful example of pure Mama Bear-Bad Assness! That is a term…look it up!! 😘