I've Been Struggling

Okay, for the very first time since we started sharing our journey on social media, I almost didn't post a video.And it is the following video.And I think it's just because I am still so deeply living this struggle and this trauma, and so it feels very fresh and raw for me.However, in researching and trying to find other videos online to help me during this time, I quickly realized that I needed to share my own story and be vulnerable enough for you guys so that we all realize that we're not carrying these struggles and these traumas alone.The following video we filmed a couple weeks ago and it's been waiting for me to feel comfortable enough to share it.These traumas we go through with pregnancy, NICU, postpartum, and everything are completely normal and I hope that it helps some others who might be feeling something similar.

You can take the mom out of the NICU, but you can't take the NICU out of the mom.

Amore, do you want to explain what is going on in this couple weeks?

Yes, so we've been home from the NICU for a couple months now, right?

Two months.

Two months.and when we first got home i felt so just happy and overjoyed and just it was such a long time coming i felt so like okay we made it yeah but for some reason guys the last couple of weeks have hit me really hard um it's really hard to speak it but i try to help you i'm gonna i can do it i can do it yeah i think it's correlated with the fact that i added an extra hour of sleep in likebecause that seems to be where suddenly my brain was more rested.Before, a couple weeks ago, I had not gotten over four hours of sleep since I went in the hospital, January 7th.So from then to two weeks ago, I only got four hours of sleep every night.When he was born, at the beginning, it was three hours because I was pumping.

Yes.

Two weeks ago, we added an extra hour of sleep, and I felt like I could hear color.My brain was like, whoa, wow, this is what it feels like to be a little more rested.But then I think that as that happened, and the fight or flight that I had been in in the NICU kind of dissipated, suddenly, I was being forced to process everything that happened.And I'm having a hard time processing it, honestly.I feel like when he was first born, everybody in our video comments were, they were like, Jesse, are you okay?You look so, you know, shell -shocked, like you look so sad.

And yeah, I was really sad.I cried every single day, multiple times a day.It was extremely hard.But I think that I was just in this tunnel vision where I had to go.I had to get through it.We had to survive it.

We had to do what we had to do.Now that things are a little bit calmed down, And now that I'm processing more, I feel like I am reliving the NICU again and again and again.Every single thing in the day reminds me of the NICU.i'll go in the bathroom and i'll wash my hands before prepping his bottle for some reason i'm instantly teleported back to washing my hands didn't make you and i remember my hands bleeding because we were washing our hands so often and they were getting chapped and raw and it's just like these little memories are bringing me back and it's really i'm struggling a little bit which is ironic because i feel like most of the people are like oh jesse you finally look so happy you look so relieved and yeah i think it's the the extra hour of sleep i'm getting i feel moreawake and vibrant.But mentally, I'll see him asleep next to me, and I instantly see him in the box in the NICU.

I don't know why.It's so frustrating because I know we're home, we're safe.It's just my brain doesn't feel like we're safe yet.I just still have so much guilt.I just feel so sad when I see him sleeping next to me. I'm like, he had to sleep alone for three months.I'm just having a hard time processing it.

And from what I've read online, because in these moments, I've gone online to try and figure out what's going on.A lot of other people feel like this too.when they come home from the NICU, it's just something that doesn't leave a lot of people, not everybody.Like you, Amore, you said you feel okay, right?

Yes, honestly, me personally, I left behind the NICU.Of course, maybe the day he's born, if I think about it, it's a little bit still emotional, so something, but it's not like I'm gonna thinking like, uh not negatively like in my brain process a different way it's like oh yes jesse was suffering every single day to to go back to home every night jesse was telling me i want to go back to the nikki i want to go back to the nikki but me personally i was trying to keep jesse here because I think she was need to sleep because in the NICU you cannot sleep so I was thinking our NICU and this other NICU you're allowed but her it's not allowed so I was trying to give no more we need to rest and then start in the morning fresh we need to go back there we need to uh uh skin skin to skin all this we need every time I slept in the house here I felt guilty and I thought yeahneed to talk with the doctor so I think my mind was trying to do we cannot be always 24 hours it's impossible and and so my mind was there instead your mind i think it was already guilt not to be there and now it's manifesting back to say i will try to be there but i see the result like oh we did a good thing like lorenz is good yeah i know i know that like for some reason it's hard to leave the big i mean it was the most traumatic it is the day one leaving him there and now you told me a couple days ago I cannot even watch the pictures.

I can't go back and watch our videos or I instantly start crying.I can't go back and watch the videos we made earlier on about this process.I just like I can't do it or I lose my mind.I'm gonna do therapy.And I did a little bit at the end of our NICU journey.I sort of started the process, but then he came home so much faster than we expected.

I sort of had to be like, okay, I can't do that anymore.Now I got an extra hour to do therapy.It felt like I didn't have it.

We don't have that extra hour because it's wild.

I know that I need to do therapy.I'm going to do it before everybody says, do therapy, do therapy.It's going to happen.Even right now, it feels exhausting to think about doing that.Also feel weird.It's like, I think that a lot of people think that postpartum hormones sort of, you know, in the first couple months, like the first eight weeks is when it's the most strong and the most difficult.

And yeah, for me, it was really hard.We talked about how I had baby blues for two weeks.And then obviously, when you're a NICU parent, is it postpartum?Or is it the fact that your baby's in the NICU?

Yeah, like, you know, you never know.because it's too traumatic.

So yes, I was crying all the time.I was anxious about everything.I felt really upset constantly and every day felt fragile.Now it feels like I'm supposed to have moved on and gotten back to normal, but I don't feel back to normal.I feel like I'm just now starting to have to process everything that we went through.

Yeah.

i don't know i mean i know that i'm not alone in feeling like this again i've read so many other people's stories that it's very common to feel like this the situation is not easy it's not easy it's like we say it but it's not easy because the emotional like to say oh don't watch your phone you know it's not working like that or or oh oh think about something else i like to look back like i wanted to look back and see like oh my gosh where we came from but at the same time it was like whoa okay i just have to keep telling myself that the nikyu version of lorenzo doesn't need me anymore so i need to stop try to save lorenzo to nikyu Because we did it.

We did it.

He's home.

He's nice, happy.

Yes.But I need my brain to catch up with that.I need to recognize that we did it and that we're not still there.Basically, just don't know what else to say in this video other than the fact that I just wanted to put it out there because I want other people to realize that if they're feeling like this too, then you're not alone.Because I was feeling very alone and kind of isolated and feeling like, man, everybody thinks I've just moved on and that I put it all behind me when I haven't, in fact, not.And I feel like maybe this will resonate with some other NICU parents as well, in general, parents in general.

It doesn't have to be NICU.If you had any sort of trauma with pregnancy or birth or anything,maybe this will resonate because once you get out of that fight or flight then you're like, oh my gosh.got to process it.

You're going to be okay.

I don't want people to be worried about me.

No, no, no.You need to just, you are, you need to just processing.Like you said, you need to process, you need to realize, but at the same time, you need to realize, uh, you don't need to feel guilt because he born early or that kind of stuff, because it's not your fault.It's not fault of nobody.Actually for what is happened, I mean, we were there every single day.You did skin to skin every single day.

He's really great because all that, all that attention.

I know, but I just sometimes wish I could do more.

Yeah, I understand.But you did everything.It is everything what we can to do that day.We did everything.And now it is like everything what we can to do.today and then you're doing it you're killing it even today you're giving this a plus because in the night you're there you wake you stay there you make sure everything the best mom ever and now yeah the best mom ever and then every morning when you wake up you go there you see the beautiful smile and that is what you need to focus on like that nikiu make us today see this beautiful smile so you did a great job Really great, great, really great job.

Just wanted to feel less alone and be honest because we've documented our entire process for you guys from my endometriosis to IVF, pregnancy.So I felt like, you know what?I'm going to put this out there too so that other people, maybe it helps other people.I don't know.It helped me to vocalize it.So thank you.