Description: This was a hard page to respond to making. I was in such a wave of surprise, joy, medicinal stupper, happiness, fear, prayer, & downright choas that I really can't clearly remember the days of the NICU and the days that followed a very tragic vaginal birth for myself. I was told my child would be in the NICU for a few weeks and I would not be bringing her home with me when I left, and the day after I leave, I am told that 9 weeks after I recover, they will have to do total reconstructive surgery due to a fistula. I was bewildered and had no grasp on reality, other than I had a beautiful baby that was coming in X- amount of days and we would deal with the surgery when it got here (smile). Then I get these photos out to work on, and I completely melted into a heap of tears. I had never seen her as fragile and weak. I had always seen a strong, healthy beautiful baby that was going to make it over EVERY hurdle they asked of her. SHE did! I used no real purchased enhancements on this page. I took all of the little things that were a part of her "first home" and scanned them, made 2 copies and placed foam tape in between to give them that "pop" of realism. Her hat, her bili-lights "sunglasses", her preemie paci, the mini-cuff for BP, the C-Pap Cap and the little velrco pad used to keep her pulse/ox light on are all a part of the page and I created a small index on each page for them. Instead of using patterned paper, I took acid-free cardstock and printed words and their definitions at random for a background and included one of the stickers that identified anything having to do with her while there (i.e. expressed milk) I hid my journalling in a accordion folded yellow cardstock piece and used string to make it interactive to read. I also included a small corner enhancement from the "Baby Place NICU" from the hospital pamphlet and placed it in the corner as a documentation of where she was born. It was important for me to celebrate her graduation from here, so why not her stay here...it was a part of her life too.