NICU Awareness Month 2020: The Morphing and Changing of Identities
It feels weird to realize that NICU awareness month passed by and I didn’t spend much time thinking about or paying tribute to my identity as a NICU mom and a preemie mom. Our first year was so intertwined with that identity. The girls were tiny and struggling to grow appropriately. I was constantly calculating their adjusted age. I was monitoring their development so closely and frankly worrying endlessly. But here we are 22 months later and most of the time I forget that they had to start their earthside lives 7 weeks early. I very rarely if ever think about the 9 agonizing weeks that we spent in the NICU desperately hoping for the girls to mature out of their bradycardia and apnea. I don’t have to endure the stinging comments about how tiny they are anymore because they’ve turned into 30 pound bruisers 🤣 once they started walking, however delayed it may have felt (they started walking around 16 months), all of the worries about their developmental milestones started to fade away.
