that point.

I'm sure you all know that point and have met it at some time in you life. That undefinable point where you feel like you can't push on any further but know you have to. That point where you have to look deep, like really deep, inside yourself to find the strength and energy to keep going. I have reached that point. I could tell I was getting close to that point over the last week and then today I got a voicemail that punched right in the gut and right to that point.
Avery has been doing so well. She was taken off the high flow cannula to just a regular cannula (basically just extra oxygen w/ little to no extra pressure).  We have been working on her bottle and breast feeding and making slow progress...but progress. It has been a possibility all along that she may have to come home on some oxygen, but she couldn't come home on the high flow so being weened down to the regular cannula was one step closer to coming home. And then I received the message today that she is not tolerating the regular cannula and needed to be put back on the high flow. *insert punch in gut here*
I had just started really, like really, really, getting hope that she would be home soon and this felt like a HUGE step backwards. At least on the regular cannula she can progress forward with her feeds and even come home if she's still on it. Neither of that can happen with the high flow. Imagine trying to enjoy your food while someone was blowing air in your nose....doesn't sound fun. So the developmental therapist didn't want to push it too much while she is on high flow. But yet she has to be able to eat all of her feeds by nipple for a full 48 hours before she can come home.
This is hard. And unexplainable kind of hard. I can't wait for her to come home and I'm still holding out hope it will happen before Christmas. But if not I will continue to search deep, deep inside myself to find the energy to keep trucking along. If Avery can do it, than surely I can as well...plus, she is so worth it!