The NICU Is Not For Wimps
Nothing can prepare you for what you see in the NICU. Nothing. Even if you have been with an older family member in the ICU, said goodbye to a parent or grandparent in the hospital. Nothing can prepare you for what you see in the NICU. Especially when it’s your own child.
To put it as simply as possible…the NICU is not for wimps.
I remember those feelings like it were yesterday. I look back and smirk at my NICU newbie self. Now that I’m a seasoned pro and all…
I remember feeling nervous, scared, embarrassed, sad…so sad…angry, and annoyed.
Walking into the NICU at Tufts, you’ll see that there are different pods. In each pod, there are up to six babies with 3 or 4 nurses. Each baby has their own little space, but it is all open. At first, I didn’t like the openness. There were curtains that could be pulled for a little privacy, but you could still hear other conversations and doctors rounding on the other babies in the pod.
I grew to like the open. The open allowed me to hear the lingo, the open allowed me be a part of conversations, the open allowed me to really get to know the nurses and understand what they truly are…angles. But most importantly, the open allowed me to see the real that was happening every day.
The real was the tears that were coming down other parent’s cheeks…not just my own. The real was seeing babies eating for the first time. The real was watching another mom hold her baby for the first time, but the dad couldn’t hold him because he could only be out of his “incubator” for a ½ hour a day. The real was seeing these nurses try and care for these helpless babies without becoming too attached. The real was seeing that we weren’t alone in this. The real was being allowed to see the miracles-the absolute miracles- that were being carried out every second of every day in that NICU. The real made me humble. The real made me think. The real made me realize how little I knew of other people’s struggles.
Every baby in Zachary’s pod was hooked up to some machine. There were always wires. There were always tubes. There were always IV’s and pumps. That was scary. To realize that the babies in that NICU were quite honestly being kept alive by the tubes and wires and IV’s that were going into their little bodies…was painfully real. This realization hurt. It just hurt. It hurt because babies should not know pain. Babies should know nothing other than the warmth of their parent’s arms and the softness of their kisses. Not these babies. These babies knew pain, and they knew struggle, and many of them hadn’t felt the safeness and warmth of their parent’s arms. Some of those babies were fighting with everything their little bodies had.
The NICU is not for wimps.
There are a lot of people who come in and out of the NICU. Nurses, radiologists,
x-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, feeding teams, lactation consultants, ultrasound techs, PICC line nurses, phlebotomists, and of course doctors. Surgeons, nutritionists, neonatologists, infectious disease…and so many more. We had run-ins with every medical professional I just mentioned. That is a lot of people to try and remember. But they’re all there to help your child.
And sometimes that is just so damn annoying. Beyond annoying. I just wanted to be at home on my couch holding my baby. I didn’t want to be sitting in a chair that made my ass numb. I didn’t want my precious snuggle time to be interrupted by doctors wanting to feel his belly. I didn’t want to hear the beeping of the monitors and IV’s anymore. I didn’t want my caring of my child to be interrupted by a diaper that HAD to be changed because it had been three hours, or it was time to check vitals. I just wanted to hold my baby without worrying about his IV tubes. Ugh. Enough already. Enough.
One of the hardest things about the NICU was trusting that other people would take care of my baby better than me. That was one of the hardest things I had to work through. I KNEW he was in the best hands. My rationale thoughts knew he was in the best hands…but they weren’t mine.
Trusting strangers, even though this is what they do every.single.day…but trusting strangers with your child’s life…it doesn’t get anymore real than that.
The NICU helped me have a stronger appreciation for life. I realize that sounds a little cliché.. But to hear monitors go off, and to see doctors and nurses giving everything they’ve got to save a baby’s life…
To hold my breath when those monitors would sound. Or drop my head and hold back the tears when the curtains were ripped closed to try and shelter you from seeing…
The NICU is not for wimps.
The absolute hardest thing I have ever, EVER had to do, was walk away and leave Zachary in the NICU when I was discharged. I would rather have had to walked through fire than leave him. But we didn’t have a choice. There are not enough rooms for every family to stay in the NICU. The rooms are reserved first for families of extremely sick babies. And while I was so, so, so glad to know that Zachary wasn’t extremely sick (this time), I was so sad that we would be pushed down the list of priority. The rooms then went to nursing mothers. Again, I understood, but it stung so bad that because I was only pumping, because my child wasn’t allowed to eat yet…that didn’t make me a nursing mother.
So we had to leave. We also had the boys at home whose worlds just got flipped upside down. I ached for them when I was at the hospital, and wanted to see them and be with them so badly. But the last thing I wanted to do was leave Zachary.
I felt like we were leaving him behind. I felt like we were abandoning him. Would he know that we were gone? Would he be neglected? Would he know that we loved him? Would his little mind somehow think, “this is it? This is what ‘life’ is”? It broke me. I tried so hard to put on a brave face. I choked back the tears when we were saying goodbye. I barely made it to the car when the tears just poured out. I was devastated, I was angry. So angry. Why was this happening to us? I must have done something wrong. It’s not fair! I can’t handle this. How am I supposed to handle this?
The NICU is not for wimps.
Nothing can prepare you for what you see in the NICU. Nothing. Even if you have been with an older family member in the ICU, said goodbye to a parent or grandparent in the hospital. Nothing can prepare you for what you see in the NICU. Especially when it’s your own child.
To put it as simply as possible…the NICU is not for wimps.
I remember those feelings like it were yesterday. I look back and smirk at my NICU newbie self. Now that I’m a seasoned pro and all…
I remember feeling nervous, scared, embarrassed, sad…so sad…angry, and annoyed.
Walking into the NICU at Tufts, you’ll see that there are different pods. In each pod, there are up to six babies with 3 or 4 nurses. Each baby has their own little space, but it is all open. At first, I didn’t like the openness. There were curtains that could be pulled for a little privacy, but you could still hear other conversations and doctors rounding on the other babies in the pod.
I grew to like the open. The open allowed me to hear the lingo, the open allowed me be a part of conversations, the open allowed me to really get to know the nurses and understand what they truly are…angles. But most importantly, the open allowed me to see the real that was happening every day.
The real was the tears that were coming down other parent’s cheeks…not just my own. The real was seeing babies eating for the first time. The real was watching another mom hold her baby for the first time, but the dad couldn’t hold him because he could only be out of his “incubator” for a ½ hour a day. The real was seeing these nurses try and care for these helpless babies without becoming too attached. The real was seeing that we weren’t alone in this. The real was being allowed to see the miracles-the absolute miracles- that were being carried out every second of every day in that NICU. The real made me humble. The real made me think. The real made me realize how little I knew of other people’s struggles.
Every baby in Zachary’s pod was hooked up to some machine. There were always wires. There were always tubes. There were always IV’s and pumps. That was scary. To realize that the babies in that NICU were quite honestly being kept alive by the tubes and wires and IV’s that were going into their little bodies…was painfully real. This realization hurt. It just hurt. It hurt because babies should not know pain. Babies should know nothing other than the warmth of their parent’s arms and the softness of their kisses. Not these babies. These babies knew pain, and they knew struggle, and many of them hadn’t felt the safeness and warmth of their parent’s arms. Some of those babies were fighting with everything their little bodies had.
The NICU is not for wimps.
There are a lot of people who come in and out of the NICU. Nurses, radiologists,
x-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, feeding teams, lactation consultants, ultrasound techs, PICC line nurses, phlebotomists, and of course doctors. Surgeons, nutritionists, neonatologists, infectious disease…and so many more. We had run-ins with every medical professional I just mentioned. That is a lot of people to try and remember. But they’re all there to help your child.
And sometimes that is just so damn annoying. Beyond annoying. I just wanted to be at home on my couch holding my baby. I didn’t want to be sitting in a chair that made my ass numb. I didn’t want my precious snuggle time to be interrupted by doctors wanting to feel his belly. I didn’t want to hear the beeping of the monitors and IV’s anymore. I didn’t want my caring of my child to be interrupted by a diaper that HAD to be changed because it had been three hours, or it was time to check vitals. I just wanted to hold my baby without worrying about his IV tubes. Ugh. Enough already. Enough.
One of the hardest things about the NICU was trusting that other people would take care of my baby better than me. That was one of the hardest things I had to work through. I KNEW he was in the best hands. My rationale thoughts knew he was in the best hands…but they weren’t mine.
Trusting strangers, even though this is what they do every.single.day…but trusting strangers with your child’s life…it doesn’t get anymore real than that.
The NICU helped me have a stronger appreciation for life. I realize that sounds a little cliché.. But to hear monitors go off, and to see doctors and nurses giving everything they’ve got to save a baby’s life…
To hold my breath when those monitors would sound. Or drop my head and hold back the tears when the curtains were ripped closed to try and shelter you from seeing…
The NICU is not for wimps.
The absolute hardest thing I have ever, EVER had to do, was walk away and leave Zachary in the NICU when I was discharged. I would rather have had to walked through fire than leave him. But we didn’t have a choice. There are not enough rooms for every family to stay in the NICU. The rooms are reserved first for families of extremely sick babies. And while I was so, so, so glad to know that Zachary wasn’t extremely sick (this time), I was so sad that we would be pushed down the list of priority. The rooms then went to nursing mothers. Again, I understood, but it stung so bad that because I was only pumping, because my child wasn’t allowed to eat yet…that didn’t make me a nursing mother.
So we had to leave. We also had the boys at home whose worlds just got flipped upside down. I ached for them when I was at the hospital, and wanted to see them and be with them so badly. But the last thing I wanted to do was leave Zachary.
I felt like we were leaving him behind. I felt like we were abandoning him. Would he know that we were gone? Would he be neglected? Would he know that we loved him? Would his little mind somehow think, “this is it? This is what ‘life’ is”? It broke me. I tried so hard to put on a brave face. I choked back the tears when we were saying goodbye. I barely made it to the car when the tears just poured out. I was devastated, I was angry. So angry. Why was this happening to us? I must have done something wrong. It’s not fair! I can’t handle this. How am I supposed to handle this?
The NICU is not for wimps.