Yes, I Got To Take My Daughter Home From The NICU. Stop Telling Me To Be Grateful.
by Vanessa Kass
Warning: This article contains details about premature childbirth.
My third child was born five weeks early.
I was induced due to IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction). This impacts between 3-7% of pregnancies and means that the baby is failing to grow in-utero. While the causes are numerous, mine was a result of placental abnormalities. Basically, my placenta shit the bed. I wasn’t giving our little girl the nutrients she needed to grow which was causing her distress. My midwife explained it like running a marathon but only breathing out of one nostril. After being carefully monitored and getting the steroid shots for the baby’s lungs, her heart rate dipped again. A half hour later I was being walked across to the hospital for an induction. Over a month early. We weren’t prepared. Even though, maybe even especially because, this was our third baby.
“mothers of preemies are more likely to have post-partum depression, take longer to physically heal and exhibit classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
After delivering two full-term babies, I was now the mother of a preemie. Mothers of preemies are more likely to have postpartum depression, take longer to physically heal and exhibit classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. These developments happen concurrently while mothering a new baby that needs additional care and support.
Instead of recuperating in my room with my new baby beside me, I was sitting in a rocking chair next to an incubator, staring at my 4-pounder through myriad tubes and wires and monitors and listening to the constant beeping of machines. I was walking to the NICU from my recovery room. Missing meals and meds and sleep because my little one was separated from me and I could not leave her.
Plus, listening to the sounds of other babies around me made me sad and angry. It was best we were together. I was pumping every three hours. Preparing my body for breastfeeding and providing my breastmilk for her. My sons came to meet their little sister and they had to do it through a glass partition. Young kids can’t come in to the NICU because the babies there are fragile. There is no beaming photo of the first meeting snuggled up in a bed all together. My eldest touched her hand. That’s what he remembers. That was all that was allowed.
I know how lucky I am that my midwife caught the lack of growth. I am thankful that I got the steroid shots which provided my little one with her best chance of strong lungs. I am grateful I advocated for myself to be examined at my appointment instead of heading home like I was instructed. She hadn’t really moved that morning. They wanted to send me home without doing the monitoring. I refused. Thankfully. The next day, my little girl arrived tiny but safe and healthy. She was a feeder and grower in the NICU. She just had to learn to eat and pack on the pounds. She was there for twenty days. It felt like one thousand. Even one day is too many. We brought her home. I am blessed. I know that. And yet…
After two boys, I was thrilled to have a girl. Her delivery, while calm and easy, was also crowded. The NICU staff was there to check her health and to take her directly to the NICU. At one point, she was moved to another room to get her breathing under control. Which I honestly don’t even remember. Things were happening so quickly. I was lucky to have some skin to skin time, and while we have some lovely photos from her birth, she did not get the little hospital hat with the bow. I understand how trivial it sounds. I do. But, gosh, I wanted the photos with a little bow.
I was discharged from the hospital and had to leave my baby there. There is no easy way to do this. No matter if it’s your first or third. I ended up driving myself home. My husband was home with our two sons and my car was in the parking garage. I had parked it there three days earlier when I came in for my appointment. I didn’t even remember where. I had a baby, I left her, I drove myself home, alone. I cried the whole way.
“i had a baby, i left her, i drove myself home, alone. i cried the whole way.”
I sat in her empty nursery at home and pumped every three hours. It was all I could do for her while we were apart. I felt my body had failed her while I was pregnant but I could pump milk like a cow. So I set my alarm and provided breastmilk for her feedings. Every three hours. In the dark and empty nursery, I pumped milk to bring to the hospital. I wouldn’t stare at the crib but instead at my right hand. There was a black and blue bruise there from the IV they put in. My daughter had a matching one, same hand, same place. It broke my heart. Every three hours.
I was at the hospital at 7am and stayed until 2:30pm every day. I missed school dropoff with my sons but was home for pickup and homework. My husband was at the hospital from 7pm until 2 or 3am. We didn’t really see one another. We were missing her when we were home. We were missing the boys when we were at the hospital. We don’t know how we survived. But we did.
I drove myself there every day while still recovering from labor and delivery. I bled more than normal and my pain took longer to dissipate. As this was a wonderful surprise pregnancy, my friends graciously hosted a baby shower for me. To replenish the baby stuff we no longer had and to celebrate this little girl. Instead of photos of a pregnant belly and excitement, I stood and shared the story of her birth and her health update. It was a happy event. Everyone cried anyway. Then I went home, cleaned up, rested and felt guilty for not going to the hospital.
I have a hard time looking at photos of her from then. So tiny and frail, connected by wires and tubes and monitors to various machines. It was almost a week before she got clothes on. It was two weeks before I could walk away from her cot and away from the machines. I sent a photo of us standing by the window to my husband. I was beaming. It was two and a half weeks before I could kiss her whole face. She had pulled her NG (Nasogastric) tube out of her nose and the nurse left it out. I held her. Marveled at her beauty and kissed her a million times. Her whole face. Unobstructed. That memory still makes my heart swell.
When we brought her home, I was resentful of the visiting nurse that came weekly to weigh her. To judge her growth and progress. He was a lovely man and he wasn’t judging my parenting, right? But then, wasn’t he? Each appointment was nerve wracking. Literally charting her weight gain for acceptable upward trends.
I had to have difficult conversations with friends. Telling them that I didn’t know when she was coming home. Placating them that it wasn’t a loss of friendship but just an auditing of energy. There wasn’t enough to go around and my family needed it more than anyone else. Which only added to the loneliness that comes with a newborn and the extra anxiety of protecting a preemie from germs and illness.
This was my last baby. I feel cheated out of the end of my pregnancy. I feel cheated out of the sweet introduction of the boys to their sister. I feel cheated out of the family photos I had scheduled for the day I was induced.
When I have to go back to that hospital for whatever reason, I exhibit classic signs of PTSD. Turning into the hospital complex, my anxiety starts to ratchet up, my belly gets cold, my breathing gets shallow and my heart starts to race. It hasn’t stopped me. I have annual fundraisers for the NICU and drop off the proceeds and donate preemie clothes. The children’s emergency department is in that complex. I have brought each of my children there since then. They have needed to go. They have gone. I am calm and reassuring to them, breathing through my own panic. I hate every minute of it.
“the NICU happens. and it is an extraordinary place. the doctors and nurses that work there are a special breed.”
So here’s the thing. The NICU happens. And it is an extraordinary place. The doctors and nurses that work there are a special breed. They take care of the families as much as they take care of the babies. They are forever tied to our family in the most amazing way. But it’s a club that nobody wants to join. If know you someone that is or is about to become a member? Get them a notebook. There are so many things to remember: goals, medical terms, numbers, etc. It is overwhelming and exhausting and your mind can fail you. Get them gas and restaurant cards. They are not going to want to cook and trips to the hospital get pricey. Buy them a long-term garage pass. We fooled ourselves the first few days when we just paid the daily fee. I cried when I first purchased the weekly one. Don’t ask them when the baby is coming home. They don’t know and they want to know more than anything. You will know when it happens, trust me. Taking her home was one of the best days of my life. Made all the sweeter by our separation. And this picture? This picture will remain up in our home always. Reunited and it felt so, so good.
Almost three years later, my daughter is still a peanut. She is long and lean and barely over 20 pounds. People often remark on how tiny she is. How petite. How little. I find myself getting defensive. Explaining that she was five weeks early and barely 4 pounds when born. That NICU experience is never far from my mind. But her spirit and determination are at odds with her size. She’s feisty. Which is good. She is healthy and wonderful and HERE and I am thankful every day. True. I am traumatized by the discovery of her growth restriction and birth (all within four days), NICU and subsequent homecoming experiences. Those things are true, too. They are not mutually exclusive. For me. Or for anyone else.
Vanessa Kass is a writer, teacher and mindset mentor. She lives in Connecticut with her three children, husband, and menagerie of animals. You can find more of her articles here.
