**Trigger Warning** Below are real life experiences from a traumatic birth and NICU life. If you are still processing your experience and want to chat with someone, please reach out to me. I would love to connect with you.
Birth Plan
That’s what they tell you to have before you go in to labor. With my first child, I had a plan. I was ready. I had taken the classes, I had practiced the moves and the breathing techniques. I knew what I wanted to happen, but I also heard that you should be open if things don’t go to plan. While my first child didn’t go exactly to plan, it did go pretty smoothly. She came on her due date and came out with rolls.
My second…well, they say no two pregnancy’s are the same and with mine, that was the truth. She came 3 months early at 27 weeks and we spent 100 days in the NICU. It was a whirlwind of a roller-coaster ride.
NICU
If you ever spent any time in the ICU whether as a patient or visiting a loved one you have met an amazing nurse. In the NICU there are so many amazing humans. Below I want to share special moments from 3 Momma’s who have been blessed by NICU nurses.
Blessed
First, I, Julia would like to share my experience with how I am one blessed Momma because of the interactions I have received from NICU nurses. When placed in a very scary and traumatic birth experience, a NICU nurse is usually your first interaction in the NICU. You are filled with all of the emotions, happiness to meet your baby, scared to touch your baby and guilty you couldn’t keep her in longer. The first time I met the nurse, Michele who chose to stand by my child’s side throughout her journey (and still to this day) visited me in my postpartum room. I was crying from the guilt that I couldn’t keep her in, my belly wasn’t big and I had to try and start producing milk but my body was only 27 weeks pregnant.
Momento’s
Michele came into my room and gave me a picture of my little baby. Along with a hat that she wore for me to smell and a paper with her very tiny foot prints. By giving me these items she made me an important part of my baby’s journey and gave me a sense of motherhood. I had yet to feel. This journey looked a lot different than my first. It didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t a joyful delivery, it was scary. She didn’t get to do skin to skin like my first or go straight to nursing, she was given breaths and almost intubated. I was grieving the loss of my birth plan.
Confidence
When you’re baby is so tiny that you can’t hold them for three days, you are so scared that if you touch your baby they may break. You don’t quite feel like a mom. The nurses there give you confidence that you can change their diaper. That you can hold your baby against your chest. Also, that you can touch your baby and not give them sensory overload. They remind you even though you may not know all the medical terms and machines that your baby needs to survive, you are still what your baby needs most. They give their all, to keep your baby alive and all they need to grow with soft talk, gentle touch. The way they position their bodies and their CPAP’s. Their hold, their assessing, their skipping of meals or bathroom breaks just to stay near. The staying late to clearly transfer information to the next shift. The feeding, the arranging of tubes and wires so your baby feels comfortable and mostly how they advocate what is best for your baby during rounds. NICU nurses become the second mom’s for your baby, you connect so much with them because you have to fully trust they love your baby like you do. They truly make it feel like you are a team of mom’s. They are a blessing to this Momma, then and even to this very day. They not only help your baby, they help the whole family.
Kari
Kari is a NICU momma of her first baby, a 28 weeker, Ryland. After having the traumatic experience with Ryland, and then my first “normal“ C-section with Harper, I thought I was ready for my C-section Oliver. I don’t have memory from my experience with Ryland, so I don’t have a lot of triggers that have to do with that. But Oliver needed suctioned and it was bad enough that he need to go up to the NICU briefly.
NICU
I barely got to see him and he was being taken out of the room and I was still being put back together—it was triggering to say the least. But the thing that kept me calm was the fact that Michelle who was Ryland’s Primary NICU nurse, had gone out of her way to be the standby NICU nurse during my C-section, so it was her who took Oliver up. I just kept reassuring myself that he was with her and so he was fine. It was what kept me from full on panic. The bond runs deep with good nurses. It reminds me of how my favorite subjects in school were because there were taught by my favorite teachers—they made it my favorite. Their presence controlled the narrative. And that’s how it is with NICU nurses.
It’s the Little Things That are the Big Things
They brought me calm during a time of whirlwind I wasn’t expecting. They took time to explain things (and then explain them again and again when there was just information overload and I couldn’t always process). They took photos (which are still hanging in my kitchen 5+ years later. They helped me pose Ryland with boxing gloves when I spent my 4th of July in the hospital instead of on our yearly family reunion/vacation. They adjusted the camera so I could see him when I wasn’t there. They matched the bedding to his outfits. They made cute name plates for his isolette and holiday scrap-book-type pages (all of which I still have.) they came in on their day off for his release. They babysat for me the two times we actually went out that first year. They did their job but they also went above and beyond in so many ways. Their job was to take care of him but they took care of me—of all of us.
Ashlee
When asked what a NICU nurse means to me, I’ll admit it’s hard to put into words. NICU nurses are literal angels on earth. They are not only the caretakers and advocates of our precious babies when we as parents can’t be there or don’t know how to care for our babies but they are also our caretakers. Wyatt, 26 weeker, spent nearly 5 months in the NICU and for a lot of that time my husband and I were learning how best to take care of him and I can honestly say had it not been for his nurses I’m not sure we would have had the confidence we did to take care of him. Wyatt’s nurses were constantly providing us with the best tips on how to take care of him. I remember one time in particular, Wyatt was unusually while I was holding him and my first inclination was to rock him to soothe him, but Michele reminded me that the rocking may in fact be overstimulating to him and that if I was just still and held him he would probably settle, and in fact he did.
Pays Attention to the Details
I also vividly remember a day I wasn’t feeling my best and couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. I had a horrible headache and couldn’t focus and felt that I wasn’t giving Wyatt my all. Michele, knowing that I had blood pressure issues, brought a blood pressure cuff into Wyatt’s room, checked my BP to make sure I was okay and then told me to go home and rest. She reassured me that Wyatt would be okay and that she would call if anything happened or changed. Knowing that Wyatt’s nurses weren’t just looking out for him but were also making sure we were okay provided a sense of relief in some ways.
Back to Work
I had gone back to work full time around 7 weeks postpartum and was only able to be at the NICU in the evenings once I went back to work. I remember one day as I was walking to my car leaving work to head to the hospital getting a call from Bre, Wyatt’s nurse that morning, and being nervous to answer. She called to ask if I was watching Wyatt’s camera because he was so alert and active and she didn’t want me to miss it.
Family
I could go on and on about how amazing NICU nurses are and what they mean to me. I’ll never be able to thank Wyatt’s nurses enough for all they did to care for him and us. They truly became our family and our biggest supporters through the most difficult time in our lives. I will forever be indebted to them for their kindness and the love they had for Wyatt. They loved him as if he was their own and being in that situation, that is all I could ask for.