Milestones

Dear Ellie,

In an hour and 37 minutes, you’ll be one week old.  You lost 4 ounces this past week, but turned a corner when you gained 1 ounce back last night.  It was your first ounce gained outside of the uterus.  You were finally given some milk, one milliliter at a time, through a tube inserted in your stomach.  It’s not unusual for micro-preemie boys and girls to reject food outright this early, but you didn’t.  Soon, they will take out the “bionic umbilical cord” that is in your belly button and worm a PIC line through one of your blood vessels… 

So many milestones…

Before your mother was put on bedrest and the troubles with the pregnancy began, I thought a lot about the milestones we’d be tracking once you were born.  All of the “full term” baby milestones.  Your cognitive progress, the first time your eyes followed objects at considerable distances, the first time you babbled something resembling a word, the first time you flipped onto your stomach, the first time you started crawling.  We were going to start documenting as soon as you were born.  But now?  Well, we still are, but those milestones are very different.  The first time you moved off of the oscillator respirator, the first time they took you off of the jaundice light, the first time your gastrointestinal tract accepted real food, your first poop…

The full-term milestones we were planning on tracking before you were born were curiosities for the most part.  Little things to observe for pleasure.  But now, your milestones are far more significant.  Each one is symptomatic of your progress, and none of them are ever guaranteed.  Each time we see one, it means your odds are better.  And surely, I look forward to each one far more than if I were tracking your full term milestones. 

And the anticipation is immeasurable.  Right now, there is one milestone I look forward to most.  Sometime soon, your eyes will finally open...