For the moms Googling at 3 AM...

There’s a special kind of mental gymnastics that happens in the NICU: I’m so lucky she’s doing well, but why is that baby going home before mine? I’d look at the babies on ventilators and feel guilty for complaining about anything. Then I’d see a 36-weeker who’d been there three days get discharged and feel irrationally sad. Grateful and jealous, sometimes in the same breath. The transitional nursery was supposed to feel like progress and it was. No more feeding tubes, less a

For a month in the NICU, I was Pavlov's dog. Every alarm had me snapping to attention. High-pitched beep? Oxygen. Long monotone? Heart rate. The maddening part? I needed those beeps. They were proof she was alive, that someone was watching. Without them, how would I know she was still breathing? What kind of monster parent doesn't continuously monitor their baby's vitals?! So when we got discharged, I did what every anxious NICU parent does: I bought an Owlet. Everyone told m

I never had a baby shower. My daughter arrived at 32 weeks, which meant she showed up before the trendy cake, before the meticulously planned floral arrangements, before anyone could argue about whether I'd registered for the right bottle washer. Here's the thing nobody tells you: you can grieve something you never even imagined wanting in the first place. I spent my first trimester so sick that I couldn't stomach toast, let alone appreciate the miracle of life growing inside