There isn’t a day when I don’t think about or feel grateful for every single person that helped Luna Bell and Kevin and I through the past three years really. It has been three years since my VERY unexpected pregnancy began and I LOVED being pregnant!!!! I was very lucky and wasn’t sick a day and I loved my growing belly. I loved every movement or kick and I loved all the cravings and the crazy amount I wanted and needed to eat to sustain growing a baby! It was weeks later that we began to get concerned about my pregnancy and then a few weeks later when we were officially concerned about my pregnancy, and even in that concern and growing fear, I loved what my body was doing, was able to sustain and frankly, I was amazed that the structure of my body didn’t completely give out!
After Luna Bell was born and the real adventure began, I was so deep in the daily in and outs and tracking numbers and breaths, that I barely allowed myself to heal from my intense pregnancy, c section and deal with all of the crazy hormones, some increased by my superhuman milk production. I didn’t know what to ask for, who to talk to , what website or Instagram page to seek out or have any idea the amazing support systems out there for families in the NICU.
Since I’ve been out of that NICU vacuum for two years, and nearly 2 months now (not that anyone is counting), I see these amazing support organizations all over the place. And I started thinking that there should be a way to get these support systems to those that need them the most. While they are in the thick of it, not a month later, or two years later.
At 3:30am, a time when I either do my best thinking or my best anxiety attack, I was thinking about how I could reach out to NICU families and get some of this information to them. As a former NICU parent I now know more of what I needed at that time, but didn’t know I needed. Even if it was a Facebook group or Instagram page or blog where I could have dumped my fears and stresses and frustrations at 3:30am or at 2pm in the afternoon when Luna Bell was sleeping, but still struggling, even if the words were hitting a void, I feel like it would have helped to put the feelings into words and get them out instead of keeping all of that locked up inside.
I saw ALL of this to come to a point. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve been in school. And unfortunately college is something I never got to complete. But after all I’ve learned, experienced and seen in my life, I feel like I may have finally found some purpose for professional life. I not only want a way to give back to the nurses and doctors that helped my little girl out, but also give a hand up to those who are in the thick of the storm. I want to do something that will make my daughter proud and teach her sympathy and caring for other. So, I may being going back to school for my degree in social work.
There. I’ve said it out loud. I’ve put in out there for others to support or judge. But I’ve also put it out there for others to hold me to it! So the search for schools and what I need to do for prerequisites and how the hell I’m going to do this while working and momming full time! But at the end of the day, somehow, someway, I need to find a way to give forward, give a hand up, and give back.
LUNAR PHASES 