Evermore - jaylor story (peace book 2)

new room and new friends

-three day old- 

-taylors pov- 

This morning both joe and I are in the hospital together because they said a social worker that works on the ward wants to speak to us. Apparently it's something they do with the new parents in the beginning of their NICU stay. 

These last couple of days have been really hard on both of us. One of us is constantly in the hospital while the other one is getting some sleep and spending some time with Ellie. I really feel like we are stretching ourselves too thin now and I don't know how we are going to keep this up. Already we are overwhelmed, and we have only been here for three days. 

"Hi, are you Taylor and joe" a woman says as she comes up to us and I nod "i'm Mariah and I'm the social worker here. Would you two like to follow me to a private room so we can have a chat" 

We do that and after shaking hands and introducing us properly we sit down in the couch next to one another. "So, we like to take some time to talk to parents when they're new to the NICU because there is a lot going on and we want to support the whole family while we help aurora thrive" she says and ask us about our family. We tell her about Elliana and what she is like and what she likes to do. She asks about our job and how we are handling that now that aurora is in the NICU. 

"so a lot of parents struggle with finding a balance between visiting the baby but also taking time to nurture their relationship and siblings. It's easy to feel like you need to be here 24 hours a day but that's not sustainable in the long run for most parents. Even though we at the same time encourage you to spend as much time as you can with the baby. It's a delicate balance" i do feel kind of weird by this, do they expect us to leave her here alone? How can we do that. She is our daughter, and we need to be here. 

"it's hard to leave her here, we understand that. And we aren't going to force you to handle this in a certain way, but we do encourage taking care of yourselves and your relationship too. Aurora needs strong parents that take care of themself so they can take care of her. What some parents do is that they stay during their day but leave overnight so they get some good sleep, and some do choose to stay overnight, its about what fits for your certain family. And then a lot of parents they take a day off or half a day off every once in a while, so they can do something together or with a sibling." she says, and I know rationally that she is right but it's a hard pill to swallow. I just feel like a horrible mother already that I couldn't keep her inside of my body longer, and now I have to leave her in the hospital alone. 

"I just feel like a bad mother if I let her be here alone. I already feel so useless that there is nothing I can do to help her, everyone around us is taking care of her but we can't. And I'm scared that if we leave something will happen to her when we are gone" I could never forgive myself if something major were to happen while we weren't here with her. I don't want her to go through this alone. 

"you're not a bad parent for taking time to taking care of yourself. We actually think it makes you a stronger parent. Every parent deserves some time off, and that's especially true for parents of a preemie because there is so much going on and it's a marathon. We do offer an option to write a list for you about what happens when you're not here so you can get some sense of knowing what's going on. And then if something major happens we always call the parents to let them know and if we feel like it's important that someone is here, we will tell you that." 

It's hard to take in everything she is saying, and joe is especially quiet and doesn't really ask anything. It's like is shutting down and keeping everything inside of him and I know that's no good for him. I wish he would talk to me and just lean on me. We are a team, but it doesn't feel like that right now.