What the books don't tell you

This is hard - a lot harder than I'd imagined. Nothing prepared us for a weeks-long stay in the hospital. The baby books and our birth & baby care class briefly mentioned the possibility of premature birth, but nobody told us we could literally spend months in the hospital, with Anna more or less confined to a bed. Even after being admitted, the doctors told us not to expect a stay of more than 7 to 10 days. We're now starting our 16th day, and there's no indication anything is going to change soon. I've said numerous times that we've settled in for the long haul, but the realization of just how long that haul could turn out to be is only just now sinking in, and it's hitting Anna particularly hard. When the doctor stopped by this morning to deliver the perfunctory holding pattern/hang in there speech, she asked Anna if there was anything special she needed. Her deadpan answer: "Prozac." I laughed, and Anna smiled, but the doctor didn't take it as a joke. "We can get you something if you really need it." Up until that moment, I didn't fully recognize the severity of the toll this ordeal is taking on Anna. I'm doing everything I can to make her stay comfortable, but I can't take her home, and I can't even get her out of this room, and that's really all she wants right now. Even my words of encouragement seem like they may be doing more harm than good. I tell her that she's being strong for Frankie, and that every day she's in here is one less he'll spend alone in the NICU. I can't help but wonder if my well-intentioned cheerleading is accomplishing anything more than instilling in her an enormous amount of guilt and anxiety. And if I can't be a cheerleader, what exactly is my job? How am I supposed to carry my share of this load? I've joked before about how pregnancy can make a father feel both helpless and extraneous, but in the months leading up to this hospital stay, I was able to channel my overwhelming sense of uselessness into various projects around the house, preparing the nest and trying desperately to demonstrate my utility. Now, I'm stuck in this hospital, unwilling to leave Anna for anything more than a couple of hours at a time, and then only to do laundry or pick up groceries. And I don't want to leave. On the couple of occasions when I let Anna's mom spend some time alone with her daughter, I was basically a nervous wreck. She may be the one stuck in the bed, but I feel like I'm right there with her. Dr. Cosantino, one of our rotating obstetricians, likes to remind me that sometimes parental sacrifice starts early. The books don't tell you that.