Moving On, Part Two

I have been really frustrated lately about how hard it has been for me to move on with my life. Every morning when I wake up, I tell myself that I'm not going to think about the NICU today, that I'll concentrate on whatever is going on that day and force myself to push all the obsessive thinking out of my head. But still, no matter what I do, memories come creeping back into my thought patterns, and I can't help but dwell on the same.things.over.and.over.

The hardest part for me to accept is what an literal miracle it was that 1.Nick is alive, and 2. That I stayed pregnant long enough to give Nick an easy stay in the NICU and avoid the major complications of prematurity. I keep thinking to myself how easily Nick could have died so many different times, and maybe it sounds selfish or self centered, but I think coming so close to losing your child is a burden to carry in it's own right. I just don't know how I'm supposed to have gone through an experience like the NICU and then go back to teaching, or running errands, or going out with friends like I used to do. I'm worried the NICU changed me to the point where I can never go back to being my who I was one year ago.

But then, a large part of me feels called to work in the field of prematurity and high-risk pregnancies. I have applied to social work programs with the goal of becoming a perinatal social worker, and I am in the process of trying to starting a branch of the amazing nonprofit, High Risk Hope, at my hospital. Just yesterday, a girl I grew up with shared on Facebook how she delivered her baby eight weeks early do to complications of preeclampsia. I messaged her to tell her I had an idea of what she was going through, that I would be praying for her, and gave her my phone number in case she ever needed to talk. She thanked me for reaching out, and then asked me how I got through it. I remember so clearly that devastation and fear that comes when you first realize what it means to have a child in the NICU, and I hope that I made her feel a little more comforted. My point in sharing this is because I feel like a lot of good has come from my experience, and I can pay it forward in a way that benefits other preemie moms in my community. Then again, my husband thinks it's unhealthy to be doing so much related to the NICU (like writing this blog,) and maybe that's why I feel so stuck. I just don't know how to get back to normal and move past to everything that has happened this year.