I had to have my little boy via an emergency c section due to acute appendicitis, while one the table I had my ovary, and tubes removed as well. He was born at 35w4d and couldn’t breathe on his own so he was sent to the NICU. He has been there since March 14, and it has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

At first we were hitting all the check marks quickly, he was on the cpap bubbler for like 3-4 days before he went on regular air through a nasal cannula, became jaundice and only had to be under the blue light for a full 24 hours, then he started eating by mouth but was still having to get the rest of his food via tube, then he came off air and started on room air and he did food for about 12-14 hours and had to be put back on then he started eating all his minimum amount by mouth and got the tube taken out. He came back off air and we were doing good for some time and we started taking discharge with the doctor and that night he had to be put back on air and that was devastating, he was on 0.025 and he was still dropping his o2 so they upped him to 0.05 which was hard to hear and getting the tests and the circumcision he needed before discharge were put on hold.

Today we were put back on room air and we have been doing great eating around 70 mls and still gaining weight, and we are gonna have the circumcision tomorrow morning. So hopefully we are well on our way to come home.

This journey has been hard and I wish I had found this subreddit sooner. I’ve had some really bad days were all I wanna do is sleep all day and just get up to pump but I can’t because I have a 4 year old to take care of. On top of that my fiance has had to work so I’ve been juggling going to the NICU by myself and taking care of our 4 year old and most of the house work and cooking meals and worrying about bill money so it’s all been very overwhelming. And to put the cherry on the cake I apparently suffer from postpartum anxiety, I have a hard time even wanting to pick up my baby though from doing it over and over again it’s gotten a little better but every time I pick him up I have visions of him falling out of my hands and hitting the floor and busting his head open. Or when anything one of the numerous things in the room beeps I immediately look to his monitor worried that his stats have dropped and I’m gonna hear code blue over the intercom for his room.

The few questions I have is are there any mamas here who had to have a c section that have experienced a day or two of no bleeding or having brown old blood and then the next day or two days after have a lot of bright red blood fill their pad again? Also is it okay for me to start to get my hopes up about my baby coming home in the next couple to the next few days this time around cause last time I got my hopes up I felt like I was gut punched and then sucker punched repeatedly and I hit a pretty low low were I couldn’t even go to the NICU the next day because of how low my mental health was