I've been feeling like quite the hermit lately, but that is OK if it's for his best interest. Having a preemie and having to be extra careful is only something another parent of a preemie can relate to. After seeing your baby in the NICU, it is vital that you practice extra caution when it comes to their first months at home. Some people might think you don't want to be sociable or share your little one with them. But that is so far from the case. Even as the baby grows you still can't forget that they are more susceptible to illness and so forth. The doctors are always telling me that I need to keep him around a minimal amount of people and almost no children. And that all who holds him must wash hands.

This brings me to this week. Christopher's pediatrician told me that I shouldn't have him in stores or around a lot of people (and no kids period) until he is around 3 months. She said the average full term baby shouldn't be out and about until 6 weeks, so with a premature baby (even if they are growing properly) you have to be even more careful, otherwise a simple cold might cause them another hospital stay. That scared me. I couldn't bear to have to leave him in a hospital again. And the reason I'm talking about this is because a day ago we went for his one month appt and there are two waiting rooms in this doc office: one for healthy children, and one for the sickly children. Well, they must be lazy or the people must not care, but Christopher and I were sitting in the midst of sneezing, wheezing, sniffly babies and kids. So it is hilarious (not really) to me that after waiting 1.5 hours to be seen in the sea of respiratory infections, that the doc really gets on me about the importance of keeping him as secluded from people as possible.

Now my baby is sneezing and has a runny nose. I've used the aspirator to suck out the mucus and praying he is not truly getting sick. I'm sitting here, it's 3AM, and I'm googling a bunch of info that won't help me prevent something that cannot be prevented at this point. As I type this, Michael is holding Christopher, who is now starting to wheeze.

SHIT.