BRAVE: a five letter word

“BRAVE: a five letter word that I thought I knew the meaning of until it was redefined for me September 14, 2022. Upon hearing the words “the cure for your condition is to not be pregnant anymore, you have to have this baby today, like now” I froze in an eerily calmness and told my husband I needed to call our daughter, our 6 year old up until then only child. I called her and told her I loved her and would call her in the afternoon and told her to have a fun time with her grandparents. When I hung up everything hit me like a ton of bricks. I cried internally. I cried externally. In a matter of a couple of hours I went from having a second “walk in the park” pregnancy to not. At 28 weeks 4 days via emergency c-section our second daughter was born. There were so many people in the OR but in a couple blinks and a deep breath I was no longer in the room. I woke up with one thing on my mind: Hazel. I wouldn’t get to meet her until 37 hours after her birth. I didn’t get to hold her until she was a week old. But what I could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other for myself, for Hazel, for our family. Being brave in the NICU meant having to surrender everything outside of my control, minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day - for all 59 days. It meant setting up a makeshift drive-in movie using our car’s dashboard and an iPad and eating popcorn while watching a movie with our first while we took turns visiting the NICU. It meant allowing myself to be vulnerable with our daughter at home, and with our daughter in the NICU. It meant breaking my introverted ways and talking to strangers.. other parents we shared rooms with and nurses who are still in our lives today. But the thing I’ve come to realize most about that five letter word is that it’s still being refined for me every day through my journey, through my husband’s journey, through Hazel’s journey, through her big sister Aubree’s journey,  through OUR journey in the NICU and nearly one year post-NICU.” NICU mama - Sarah