Realities of the NICU...

When you spend most of every day in the NICU, the realities of your world change a bit.

1. My dishwasher only contains coffee cups and cereal bowls.

2. A bologna sandwich is considered "cooking at home."

3. We've run out of restaurants.

4. I can sit quietly for hours simply watching beeping monitors.

5. When one of those monitors actually beeps, my heart stops.

6. When I realize the piercing alarm is coming from another room, I'm relieved and I feel guilty.

7. You can always tell the Mom's of other NICU babies when you see them walking into the hospital with bags under their eyes and their insulated bag of breast milk.

8. You avoid the main entrance of the hospital at all costs. Who needs to see happy families headed home with their babies with bags full of freebies and a cart full of flowers and balloons? You kind of hate those people. And you don't feel guilty about that.

9. You celebrate poop.

10. Life revolves on a 3-hour schedule so you can hook suction cups to your boobs. You dare not miss a chance to "pump." You have to stay ahead of your baby.

11. It isn't weird that your husband praises you for getting two ounces of milk.

12. You and your husband can sit and have a conversation while you pump and it isn't weird.

13. You can sit in a room with other women who also have suction cups on their boobs and talk about the gulf coast, ventilators, feeding tubes and the president.

14. You are so used to using a sponge to scrub your hands that when you go to the bathroom at home you reach for the sponges only to find they are not there. I'm thinking of getting some.

15. You coat your hands with purell every time you pass a dispenser. You wonder if you can get the kind they have at the hospital because it smells good to you.

16. You begin to think your 5 pound baby looks totally normal and that 8-pounder in the next room is a freakish giant!

17. When you see new mom's being wheeled down to see their baby for the first time, you want to cry. For them and you.

18. When you see the same Mom in a wheelchair later the same day, you call her a wimp under your breath. Get up and walk. And you know you aren't being fair but really, aren't you getting enough attention and now you want wheeled around? Puh-leeeaassse. And the fact that she is crying because her baby MIGHT spend 2-nights in the NICU? Whatever. And yes, you aren't being fair but still don't care.

19. You are up at 5 am packing your bag for the day. 5 am sucks.

20. You are extremely excited that you are going to come home early today to clean and do laundry. Shocking.