There is a rule at our house, much like in baseball, there is no crying at Target. It is a magical, wonderful place and no one should be sad there. Well, this time of year 2 years ago I completely broke that rule.

Let me back up for some reference. Grant was born in September, came home the end of October and then we were home. All day every day at home. I LOVED it. I love being home and I LOVED caring for and figuring out our new life with our little man. But because he was a preemie we were under strict caution to not be out and about, especially in the winter time. His immune system had not developed the way other full term babies had and the risk for a cold, infection and RSV (to name a few) was HUGE. Not many people are prepared to have preemies but with that comes the unknown of all the things to be cautious for. When he was that little, there were constantly things to think about, caution about and honestly, be terrified of. So while it seems simple and almost silly, leaving the house was a BIG (and scary) deal.

Once we felt a little more comfortable we would run errands on the weekends as a family and one person would run in the store and the other stayed in the car. Other than that we were at home and didn’t budge. (I would escape to the gym when Blake got home from work most days and that helped a ton.)

So a few days before Christmas in all of my new mom/maternity leave delirium I decided we would go to Target. Again, I was delirious and almost oblivious to that fact it was Christmas time. We had a Milk Snob cover we kept over his car seat to go to the doctor and a sign on his car seat that said something like ‘I’m a preemie, your germs are too big for me, please no touching'. I thought ‘okay, we will just go for a few minutes to get out of the house, I will keep him covered, wipe down the cart and we will be in and out.’ I gave myself a pep talk, got everything gathered and we drove to Target. Once we got through the traffic (it was still not clicking with me that pre Christmas chaos that was happening) and parked it finally dawned on me. And to say I lost it was an understatement. There were a million people there and it was straight up insane. I KNEW I could not take him into Target. The germs were multiplied times a million with that many people and it just wouldn’t be safe or smart.

I felt so defeated and sad and mad at myself for thinking this was a good idea. I called Blake and just lost it on the phone to him. I couldn’t do a simple task, like go to Target (my most favorite thing to do) and it just really crushed me. When I would venture to Target on my own I would see other moms with their babies and be SO JEALOUS. Admittedly, this was not my finest hour or reflection of my character but it was the one thing I wanted to do most with my baby and I couldn’t.

I would NEVER want to change our story but there are just so many unknowns when having a preemie that you don’t even know will come up and when they did/do sometimes it is such a shock.

Funnily enough, Target is now Grant’s most favorite place to go. It could be because he gets a muffin and juice from Starbucks every time ;). He asks to go almost every day and often says, ‘I like Target!.’ Me too buddy and the fact that we can now go together makes me SO happy. (Don’t worry, I still wipe the cart down like a crazy person.)

From the moment a NICU journey starts, the first question on everyone’s mind is ‘when does the baby get to go home?’ And that is 100% valid, that was our first question as well. When you enter the NICU, the general rule is that they will be home by their due date. For us that meant 10 weeks in the NICU. That seemed FOREVER away. Here we were mid September and his due date was late November. I’ll be honest, it took a while for us to wrap our heads around that idea. The caveat is always that it could be sooner but only time will tell.

Of course, we wanted Grant in the NICU as long as it was necessary, but we also wanted our baby home. Throughout the journey we were continually pleased and proud of Grant for doing better and better every day. We were so thankful that he was a ‘grower and a feeder’ and really didn’t have any issues that we had to contend with. We just needed him to keep growing and getting bigger and stronger. There are days when I look back and that time seemed like it was MONTHS upon MONTHS long and days when it seems like it went by SO quickly.

After about 4.5 weeks I started to get really antsy. While we were in a good grove with our routine at the NICU, but I was anxious to start our life at home. Again, we wanted him getting the absolute best care he needed for as long as he needed but we couldn’t deny our yearning to have him home. There was about a week leading up to when we were finally able to go home that it seemed like everyone around us was discharging. And while I was ecstatic for them, we could barely contain our overwhelming desire for it to be our chance to carry our car seat inside. I cannot tell you the number of days I left the parking garage and cried ugly tears to Blake on the phone and said ‘I just want to take my baby home!’ Leaving the hospital 2 days after Grant was born without him was excruciating and unfortunately I remember it very vividly. But leaving every single day after that for 41 days without him was just as rough.

The Sunday before we were able to go home, we were visiting with Gman and they started talking to us about going home. We were in utter shock. You have to watch a set of videos over before you’re discharged and when we came back from lunch that day they had the tv in our pod. We started watching right away! At this point we did not say anything to anyone, we did not want to jinx anything and we were not 100% (by any means) sure that we would actually get to go home in the next few days. However, more and more discharge checklist items kept happening.

Grant was meeting all of his milestones and the last one was to be doing all of his feeds either by breastfeeding or the bottle for 48 straight. We were nervous about this because he tended to fall asleep while eating and would have to finish with his NG tube in his nose. We prayed and prayed that he would meet these steps. Around Tuesday he didn’t do so well and we had to start the clock over again. However by Wednesday he was doing better and they said that we could ‘room in’ with him the next night. At this point we told our parents that the possibility of him going home in a few days seemed like a reality.

‘Rooming in’ meant that we would stay in a hospital room down the hall from the NICU with Grant, free of machines and wires and all on our own (the nurses were a call away and checked on us). To say we were excited was an understatement. As well as nervous as all get out. We kept saying ‘you mean it just gets to be the 3 of us?! By ourselves?!’

Between pumping and feeding G every 3 hours and getting used to his little noises, I don’t think any of us slept all that much BUT it was also one of the best nights of my life.

The next morning we took G back to the NICU and went on to work. I called the NICU mid morning to check on him and they said ‘so he is doing great and YOU CAN TAKE HIM HOME TODAY!’ I am pretty sure you could have knocked me over with a feather. I called Mister and we both headed home to get ready.

We headed to the NICU for one last time and walked up to the check in desk. I will never forget that Mister walked up to the counter and said ‘I’m Blake and I’m here to pick up my son Grant and take him home’. I was a puddle.

A fellow preemie mom told me in the midst of our journey that their graduation day is almost more special than their birthday and I have to agree. We plan to always celebrate Grant’s graduation anniversary in a special way.

We had no idea what NICU life meant, what that world entailed and what our life would look like after Grant was born.

Initially we were told that he would stay in the NICU until he was full term.  That was 10 weeks from when he was born.  We were obviously willing to do whatever we and he needed but at the same time, we wanted our boy home.

We were constantly shocked at how the NICU nurses and doctors made us feel like family, they were incredibly understanding, patient and so loving.  They helped us quickly transform our life into that of NICU parents.  The outside world quickly melted away, it kept going for sure, but our world was only revolving inside the walls of the NICU.

I quickly fell into a schedule of pumping, packing my bags for the NICU, traveling to the NICU for the day, pumping, snuggling/kangaroo care with Grant, pumping and feeding more and then heading back home.  Mister would work a shorter day and fill in for me at the NICU in the evenings.  We passed like ships in the night and treasured the weekends when we could be there as a family.  We both crashed at night and would call the NICU before we fell asleep to check on Grant and get his daily vitals.

I will never forget a few weeks into Grant's stay and I walked in and he had clothes on! My baby, my little, little man who has never worn anything but a preemie diaper and wires had a onesie on! I literally could not believe nor could I imagine what effect seeing him with a tiny piece of cotton would have on me. 

I was moved to tears from shock and excitement.  I immediately sent Mister to Buy Buy Baby to find clothes for Grant.  Sadly they had one very, very small section of preemie clothes.  He was able to find a package of plain white shirts that snapped on the side.  I was in disbelief that there were so few preemie options. 

I then ventured to Target to see what they had.  It was the same story but they had even less options.  Now I was beginning to get upset.  I fully understood that retailers sell many more 0-3 and newborn clothes than preemie but still felt it was unfair for there to only be a few options out there.  Not to mention, most preemie families are very busy being at the NICU and sleeping when they aren't at the hospital.  Therefore, this does not leave much time to search all over town for preemie clothes for your baby.  This is disheartening when all you want to really do is dress your child to feel a little bit of normalcy in your life when your world has been turned upside down.