When Tommy was still in my belly, I barely felt him move.
You know that moment when you suddenly go, “Oh! The baby just moved!”? I hardly ever had that experience.
They say you usually start feeling your baby move around the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy. But at first, it can be hard to tell whether what you’re feeling is the baby moving or just your stomach doing its usual little twists and turns.
Eventually, though, those movements usually get stronger. By the third trimester, your baby can push and stretch so hard that you’re like, “Ouch! Hey, watch it in there!”
And when you’re lying in bed and can actually see your belly rippling and shifting on its own… honestly, it looks like something out of a horror movie.
That’s exactly how it was with my two older daughters.
Just like all the pregnancy magazines and websites said it would be.
But with Tommy, I just couldn’t seem to feel him moving, no matter how far along I got.
Was it because I’d gained weight and it was harder to notice?
Or was I getting older and becoming less sensitive? 😅
It wasn’t until late in the pregnancy that I finally started feeling something—a very subtle sensation, almost like someone gently brushing the inside of my belly.
My two older girls had been such little firecrackers, so part of me wanted to believe, “Maybe this baby is just going to be a calm, easygoing kid…”
But knowing a little too much about medicine left me with about 99% anxiety.
Thankfully, all of my ultrasound scans were normal, and there were no problems detected.
I didn’t have any prenatal genetic testing during the pregnancy.
There are so many different ways of thinking about prenatal testing, and I don’t think there’s one universally “right” answer. In my case, honestly, I just never thought of doing it. 😂
I knew prenatal testing existed, but I was simply planning to have the baby and had spent most of my pregnancy worrying about everything that might happen after he was born.
And then came the delivery.
I had a C-section under spinal anesthesia, so I was awake and aware of what was happening.
Which also meant I knew immediately when my baby didn’t cry.
There was cardiac massage. Assisted breathing…
They were performing CPR on my newborn.
Tommy was taken to the NICU—the neonatal intensive care unit.
He would spend about a month and a half there.
I was perfectly healthy and feeling fine, so I was discharged from the hospital in less than a week.
But from then on, my daily routine was pumping breast milk, freezing it in little storage bags, and delivering it to the NICU.
Tommy was on a ventilator, so I couldn’t breastfeed him directly.
The breast milk was being delivered through a feeding tube that went through his nose and into his stomach.
I’d reach my hand through the opening of the incubator to stroke my baby’s head or hold his tiny hand.
I also loved reading the little “Tommy diary” that the nurses kept for him.
The day he no longer needed the ventilator was even more emotional than the moment he was born. ✨
But, as it turned out, that was only the beginning of another incredibly challenging chapter.
Once the tube in his nose was removed, I still had to bring my frozen breast milk to the hospital every day—and now I had to stay and breastfeed him before I could go home.
The problem was, he simply didn’t have enough strength to suck properly.
So when they weighed him before and after breastfeeding, he wasn’t gaining any weight.
That meant he wasn’t getting enough nutrition.
The nurses would take some of the frozen breast milk I’d brought, put it into a tiny bottle, and I had to feed it to him little by little.
And let me tell you, that took FOREVER.
He was slow to drink, and then he’d fall asleep halfway through. 😩
I couldn’t leave until he finished.
Time was ticking… and I was like, “Come on, Tommy… pleeease!” 💦
Knowing full well that he didn’t have the strength to breastfeed, a tiny part of me couldn’t help thinking, “Wouldn’t it be so much faster if I just gave him the bottle from the start?”
Bad mom, I know. 😂
I also knew how important that skin-to-skin contact and bonding time was.
I wanted to take my time, look into his sweet little eyes, and enjoy those moments with him.
But I’m sorry, buddy—your big sisters were about to come home from kindergarten and daycare!
Tommy was born at a perfectly average height and weight, but for some mysterious reason, he kept getting pneumonia.
As a result, he just couldn’t seem to get discharged from the hospital.
I’ll write more about what happened after he finally came home safely.
Until next time!
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