So child care should be a simple thing for a working mother, right? Pick one close by, sign up, give them a $50 to hold your spot in 9 months and presto - you got daycare. At least it was that easy when I was pregnant and 100% prepared for baby. Then I had a preemie.
When Will was born at 29 weeks - which one day soon I'll tell that story - everything changed. A sneeze was no longer just a sneeze - it was a threat to the very survival of my little guy. A cough not properly covered meant the look of death from everyone in the room. And God forbid you coughed while holding the baby. That is if you were lucky enough to earn that privilege (and very few were).
You touched the cabinet handle - squirt, squirt with hand sanitizer. You touched your phone - wash your hands with soap and hot water. Sometimes, I did both before I touched Will again. Hey, I didn't want a single germ to come near my baby with the very fate of him coming home from the hospital hanging in the balance.
But I digress, enough with my sudden germaphobic, preemie mom ways and back to daycare.
Now I'm faced with finding someone to watch my little guy while Mommy works. That's not taken lightly. Not only is this little guy the apple of my eye, the cream in my coffee and the center of my world - now I have hand him over to someone else to care for him. Again. Bringing him home after 107 days in the hospital was the happiest day of my life. I hear tales of moms in tears dropping their kids off at daycare and I shutter to think what my reaction will be to his first day. I remember what it felt like leaving him at the hospital every day and I really doubt the dreaded daycare drop off will be much different. Cue the shredding of my heart to pieces.
Until now, I've been blessed with a mother-in-law (MIL) who has been watching him since I started back to work. But now I need to find another solution and it is increasingly looking like it will be a solution outside of my home. The idea of opening my sheltered little guy up to a world of germs keeps me up at night - a lot. Exposing him to strangers after so many carefully guarded months of limiting his exposure to the outside world in fear of a trip back to the NICU. I'm sure this is the fear of every new mom - but a preemie mom lives through this nightmare every day.
So this weekend, we will do interviews with a few small, in-home day cares to try and find a second family for my little Willy Bear. Hopefully, he won't take it as hard as I am. After all, he's the stronger of the two of us.
