four weeks. [day 29.]

Sometimes I think about how much time has passed since Ruthe was born and I get really, really bitter that she's still in the hospital.  I watch parents come in and take their babies home after a few days, or a week, and I just get angry.

And then I look at this face...

And I know I'm being ridiculous.  I know that there are babies in the hospital that have been there for months with no end in sight.  I know there are families who might never get to take their babies home.  I know that things could be a lot worse than they are.

Yesterday I watched a family take home their one-year old baby girl who had spent her entire life inside the hospital.  It was like a party in their little NICU-room.  Doctors and nurses were coming from all over the hospital to say good-bye.  And even though those parents had bags packed with medications and monitors and their little girl had to go home in a medical transport van, it was a happy day. 

When I look at my Ruthe's face and she looks back at me I know in my heart that she'll be home in the blink of an eye.  She's just lazy, like her momma, and likes being fed through a tube.  Pretty soon she'll figure out that milk is delicious and then we'll have to work to get her to stop eating.  Maybe I should dip her bottle in chocolate...