A Mom’s NICU Journey (x2) Part 3
The NICU
If you are wondering who I am, check out this post.
It’s hard to describe how I truly felt hours after my first was born, and the best way I can put it in a sentence is this, first comes the guilt, then the hussle! Was there something I could have done to prevent this? Was it my fault? Is it genetics? All these questions popped up in my head. The reality is there is absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent early-term delivery. I proved it with baby number 2. I was told I was too active during pregnancy and should not work out, so I gave up what I loved doing the most, stopped working out while I was pregnant with my second, and instead started doing only particular prenatal workouts. Someone told me I should stop having bananas, so there went eating bananas during my pregnancy. I had a sonogram every other week, and there were no signs of early labor, but at 34 weeks, my water broke, and 12 hours later, baby number 2 decided to make an entrance. So to reiterate my point, there is absolutely nothing I could have done. It took me a long time to completely get over it, and sometimes I still have to remind myself there was nothing I could have done. I believe there is a time and place for everything, and it was time for my sons to be born. I now look back at our NICU journey with many fond memories, filled with cuddles, milestones, worries, tears, bradys, apnea, caffeine, seamless food deliveries, making friends, practicing breastfeeding, and appreciating my partner even more! I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my superhero partner.
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If you have someone who gave birth early, let’s talk about what NOT to say to a NICU parent. Please don’t say things like: “What did you do?”, “What happened?”; do you think I know what happened? “My full-term baby was the same size.” And please don’t ask when the baby is coming home. It’s hard to know when the baby will go home. NICU babies have to meet milestones, and the medical team is usually conservative with time frames, so they never give you an exact date. So please don’t ask. All you can say is that I am there for you, and please let me know if you need anything. If you want to do something nice? Gift the parents a food delivery gift card, transportation help (if you live in the city), help watch the older kids, buy them diapers for when they come home, or get them a visa gift card.
As a NICU parent, the one word you never want to hear is BRADY, especially if you are close to going home. Brady is caused when your baby forgets to breathe. Our medical team put bradys in two categories: one when the baby is lying down, and the other when the baby is feeding. You can read more about bradys and apnea on the verywellhealth post or just google them. But the point I am trying to get across is type of brady you DON’T want your baby to have is the one where they forget to breathe while sleeping. If that happens frequently, you know what they give babies to avoid bradys, CAFFEINE. I thought I needed tea and coffee to function. Anyhoo, the sleeping bradys extend your baby’s NICU stay much longer than a feeding brady. The days may vary for every hospital, but one of the worst things for a parent is when you are one day away from going home, and your babes has a brady, and your going-home clock goes back to where you started. For us, it was five days. Apart from bardys, there were other milestones our babies had to meet before they came home, weight gain, eating well, sitting in a car seat without a brady for ninety minutes, and, of course, no other major health complications.
Our first stayed in the NICU for eight weeks, and our second for three weeks. The NICU stays were hard; I feel like the second time around was MUCH harder, even though the stay was shorter, given that we had a toddler at home who missed his parents. The babies were fed every three hours along with diaper changes and temperature checks and weighed at night after the nurse shift changes. I remember when my kiddos started to eat, and I wanted to make it to every feeding. Breastfeeding was important to me, and I knew having premature babies would make this initial journey hard. But, I stuck to it, practicing the latch for forty minutes to an hour while navigating trying to get to the NICU before feeding time, avoiding gavaging the baby, dealing with my fear that the baby is not eating/gaining weight, and comments from nurses stating they have to eat, helpful nurses trying step in and offer advice, conversations with lactation consultants, avoiding advice that did not make sense to me, pumping after unsuccessful attempts to ensure my supply does not dwindle and repeating this for 2–3 feedings a day. Still, you know what, I did it. More on my breastfeeding journey in a later post, but I am very proud that I was determined and stuck to it. My first breastfed until he was 20 months, and my second is currently exclusively breastfed.
Our NICU journey had many fond memories and many scary moments, but we made it home safe and sound with our babies healthy. We are grateful for the outcome and never take our kids for granted. They are both warriors; they are our life, and we love them more than we have loved anything else.
