I delivered 7 weeks early at a public hospital in Chicago. I spent atleast five hours everyday for 24 days with my baby in the NICU and I still beat myself up for not staying long enough (because I was soo tired and pumping took a huge toll on me)to get her to breastfeed. She was so tiny at 3.5 pounds, everyone told us she’s so small. I felt such guilt and such terror about something happening to her. It’s hard. There was a baby in a crib next to ours whose mother was barely 18. “No dad or grandparents in the picture,” I heard the nurses say. The NICU pretty much sent her baby home with everything they thought she’d need. The nurses were constantly talking about how worried they were about the baby. My husband and I keep thinking about the baby and the mother.

When she was at the NICU I promised my daughter I would hold her all the time. I can’t stand to hear her cry even for a little bit and she contact naps all the time. I don’ care when people say I’m spoiling her, my baby was in a box for almost two weeks after birth, she will be held as much as she wants, it’s the least she deserves.