Is this really happening?

Having a micropreemie and spending months in the hospital is something I would never wish on my worst enemy. I love my babies so much and would never trade them for the world, but watching them struggle and suffer the way they have is just unbearable for me as a mother. After Travis came home, I prayed to God that I would never experience anything like that again. It was traumatic and life altering and painful. It was also rewarding and amazing to see my son turn into the beautiful little boy that he is now. I have said to NICU mom's who have done this more than once, "I don't know how you do it more than one time. I could not handle it". And here I am, doing it again. I realize it IS different this time, and Ava is doing much better than her brother was at this point, but so many things are the same and so many things are not the way they were supposed to be. Today as I was holding Ava, staring at her perfect little self, with a feeding tube, cannula, IV's, temp probes, monitors, etc, I thought to myself, "Is this really happening right now? Am I really sitting here AGAIN, holding my TINY baby, praying for her strength, watching her numbers rise and fall? Really, God?" I know this is how it is supposed to be, but I don't know why. And that is probably not something that I will ever understand.

As far as a medical update goes on Ava, she is pretty much the same. We are still struggling with her lack of determination to BREATHE 100% of the time. Her lungs really are not all that bad, and when she does breathe, she only needs about 21% oxygen, which is just room air. But she so frequently forgets. This morning her doctor told me that if she keeps this up, he will have to put her on Sipap, which is the breathing support she was on before her surgery. Apparently her night was quite rough, but so far her day has been much better. I held her for about an hour and a half today and she tolerated it well. Another frustrating is her lack of weight gain. She lost 2oz last night and is down to 2lbs 10oz. Maybe my expectations were too high but I was really thinking she would be a little bit more stable and bigger by now. I know that she needs to grow and mature in order to be able to breathe better, so this is really important. They did a septic workup to see if she is sick but the doctor doesn't think that is the problem. I guess she just needs time. Patience is not my strong point. Although you would think I would have learned it while Travis was in the NICU, but you would be wrong. If anything, I became even more impatient.