It will happen right?

I'm not the most eloquent person out there, I have a hard time writing down how I feel but sometimes I just need to try and this is one of the times.

I know one day I will not think about the girls as being premature.

I know that this is true, because of how my in-laws are around my husband. He was a 26 weeker, but is now nearing 30. Yet, days happen, moments really that I recognize the look in their eyes. Its the look of "wow you made it" "wow you are alive" "wow you are not perfect" and "wow you shouldn't be old enough to make that decision" I looked back on the pictures of our wedding during his dance with his mom and she had the look, I thought I understood it before the girls but I didn't. I do now.

I hope that I can have a day without thinking back to what they have been through. It won't happen soon. Every time I hear Avery talk with her paralyzed vocal cord, give her her medication, see her scar, every time I put Gwen's hearing aids in I think about the healthy babies they would have been if they didn't come 15 weeks early.

I'm lucky. They are lucky. Most 25 week babies have a slue of health issues, and honestly a vocal cord high blood pressure and hearing aids are nothing. They are both alive and will have normal lives, with a lot of doctor appointments now mind you. But they are fine. I feel bad even having these moments because of how well they are doing. But I do still morn the babies that they could have been, the life that they had to fight for from before they took their first breaths.  A year ago today I was at one of my lowest, concerned for my little Gwen. She was on ventilation of some kind since she was 6 days old, spent 61 long days most of them on the oscillator. A scary machine that looks like it was from the 1970's and is extremely loud. Little did I know it, she would be off of it the next day.

Gwen hooked up to the oscillator  

  

Gwen Feb 26, 2012 

Gwen Feb 16, 2013(pic by Auntie Kit)

It always reminds me that anything can happen. Life is full of surprises and even when you don't see it happening. I don't know if it will be this year or in the next ten, but one day I won't look at my girls and think of them as premature babies. It won't always define them, but I think I will always be a preemie mom.