Broken.

So ...the good news is that I've managed to stay off the Zoloft and still feel like a normal person.  So I suppose I owe an apology to my physicians and healthcare in general.  It appears they were right ... I really did need to wait out the hormones.

I went back to work this week.  It honestly broke my heart.  As hard as it was to leave A2 ...leaving two babies was at least twice as bad.   The first day I had gut rot ...the baby wouldn't take a bottle despite the $300 in various nipples and bottles that I purchased.  We diligently attempted every day from the time he was 2 weeks old.  There would be rare occasions when he would manage an ounce or two, but for the most part was unable to latch on.  It got to the point that his jaw would start trembling  and he would start crying when he saw the bottle. Leaving babies is bad.  Leaving a baby and knowing that he's going to be starving, dehydrated, screaming and miserable was worse.  We made arrangements for Monk to stay home so that he could drive the baby to me if needed.  Monk called me a 9 ....to tell me that the baby drank 7 ounces of breastmilk from a bottle like it was no big deal and something he did everyday.  Thank the lord for small wonders ...and stubborn babies.

My heart feels broken tonight.  In my practice, there are 4 new babies ages 5 months and younger.  A virtual baby boom.    One of my partners is 42 and infertile.  I think she has resigned herself to living child free.  I can't imagine how painful this little baby boom is for her.

One of my partners, someone who is relatively new to the practice in the last year but with whom I've become close to because of our shared pregnancy and other similarities, is currently 34 weeks pregnant.  She fell in the parking lot last week.  They admitted her to L&D for observation and did an ultrasound.  The ultrasound revealed the baby was way too small for gestational age and was missing a corpus callosum in her brain.  To make a long story short, she had an amnio which was normal - and began to feel some hope.  She had a fetal MRI at UofM yesterday.  They called her at work today to let her know very, very bad news about the baby.  She left work feeling extremely distressed.

I can't even begin to imagine.  Can.  Not. Imagine.

It's truly beyond a miracle that any of our babies make it out "normal" and "healthy".  One little misalignment of a part of a gene.  Just one. 

I came home to squeeze my three extra tight.  Extra, extra tight.