Little Miss

Bella's first weekend home - she still sleeps with this bear. Little Miss will hit her 1 year homecoming August 8th. I can't believe she has been home with us this long. I can't believe she is 16 months. She amazes me everyday. We both just look at her in amazement. She is the happiest little girl. No matter if she feels bad she is still able to work up a smile. And of course we think she is the cutest little girl too. :)


So I am looking for help that anyone can provided me with. Now that life is starting to get normal again. And we have a good routine. I am back at work on a routine and Bella is doing great. I want to give back to other preemie mom's it is something I have thought about since before I had her; three weeks in the hospital on bed rest gave me lots of time to think about what changes I wanted to make in my life after all this.

And I have thought long and hard about it. I decided that I want to figure out how to start some kind of NICU organization. They have the March of Dimes that is great and I plan to do the walk in 2011 and lot of other great organizations for pre-term labor & preemies research. But I want to give back to the preemie moms/dads/grandparents/foster parents who are in the NICU. Nothing about having a NICU baby is normal.

Is it the best thing that could of ever happen to me? YES.

Would I have changed things? I can't say. I think God knew what he was doing when he gave me Bella.

Would I love to have more children? Sure I would, I love being a mom. I know people say that but I really do mean it when I say it I love everything about being a mom. I get frustrated and need a break of course I am not super mom. But I love the good and the bad.

So with that said.
Any suggestions or help on how to make this dream a reality please let me know.

I want to figure out a way to take donations to then donate to the parents at the NICU, to buy preemie cloths for the baby's in the NICU, to buy chairs(which are in high demand - or take donations) and mobiles(plastic ones are best - lots of fluids to get cloth ones dirty). These are all the things I had in the NICU that made going each day more tolerable. I want to do gift baskets for new moms that are filled with the things you can have in the NICU; like camera w/flash, notebook, pens & literature for the new parents. You would be surprise at the fact that a lot of hospitals don't have books on preemie baby's for new moms to read. Space is limited for that. And in the first few days they are so focused on all the medical issues they forget to tell you about how your baby will look. They spend so much time telling you statics they don't think about telling you the baby's skin won't look normal or they may not open there eyes for a while. And even that a girl may not look like a girl. Everyone knows that was the hardest thing for me. But after about a month I went to a book and got a book on preemies. I skipped the chapter on grieving. And read the first few pages. Those first few chapters would have helped so much to understand the appearance of the baby.

It is hard to not bring home your baby. And the stay is long. I treated Bella's space like it was her home. I never started a nurse I am so thankful for that because I don't think I could have came home everyday to a empty nurse. I created her nurse there.

All these things make the time a little easier.