NICU stay in Sicily

When I was 35 weeks pregnant I noticed Adaline wasn’t kicking or moving like normal anymore. After about an hour of waiting for some movement I decided to go to the hospital on base to get checked out. After some tests the doctor decided Adaline would be better off outside than inside the womb. We never got a clear answer as to why this happened but nevertheless it did. Adaline was born a few hours after I was admitted to the hospital. When she was born she was having trouble breathing on her own. The doctors at the hospital on base tried to give her sometime to get her stable enough but ultimately she had to be transported into town to the Italian hospital to go to the NICU. I was discharged 7 hours after birth so I could potentially be allowed to stay with her. After an hour or so of trying to get her stable enough she was on her way in an ambulance to the middle of Catania, Italy to a hospital I had never heard of. We got to follow behind the ambulance, but once we were at the hospital the door to the NICU got slammed in our face and we weren’t allowed to stay with her. We were only allowed to visit mon, wed, fri for 1 hour a day and we weren’t allowed to split the time. We had to rely on translators to communicate with the doctors and we were only allowed 1 phone call a day to see how she was doing. While in the NICU we never got to hold her, didn’t get to take any pictures, change her diaper, feed her or do anything someone with a newborn would normally. She was sedated and barely awake when we got to visit. She ended up getting jaundice and lost about a 1lb because she couldn’t digest her food. After 10 days she was finally discharged and we were able to hold her for the first time. There is nothing that prepared us but I’m proud of how far we’ve all come.