A Day In The Life Of A NICU Parent
Spending a day in the NICU is the strangest balance of fear induced adrenaline and complete boredom. You are so on edge for every movement your baby makes, in fear every time a nurse or doctor comes to talk to you, and yet so silent and alone. The stress level and tension in the unit is constantly high and everyone seems so rushed yet at a stand-still.
I always say the biggest benefit of being in the NICU is that we got on a great routine almost immediately. Every three hours they wake up your baby, change them, run any tests they need, feed them, and then you wait for the next three hour mark. In our case, Hudson was what they called a “Sugar Baby” , meaning he had blood sugar issues and his poor heel had to get pricked at every feed to check his blood sugar levels. Austin and I lived in fear every three hours from watching someone make our tiny 4lb baby bleed and getting constant bad news.
For us our days went something like this:
-Wake up super early and call the NICU -> Give the nurse our special code -> Get an update on how he did during the night -> Immediately rush to NICU to be there for his next feed and meet the day shift nurse
-Once we arrived at the NICU we had to “Scrub In” , which if you have ever seen any type of medical show where they perform a surgery - it looks just like that. We got a combination vegetable brush/sponge with special soap to scrub from under our fingernails to our elbows for three minutes before we were even allowed in the door.
-Next, we rush to our bay to see our sweet boy laying in what I can only describe as an incubator, and wait for the nurses to do their rounds and come talk to us
-Then we literally hung out all day repeating the every three hour cycle until whichever feed came closest to midnight before we went home to sleep a couple hours and repeat it all again the next day.
The NICU is weird unit full of silence and extreme volume. Each baby is hooked up to monitors and it always seemed like somewhere there was at least one beeping, which would startle the baby next door so it was a never ending cycle of a screaming baby and loud monitors. The overall tone from the staff and parents was very hushed and no one really spoke above a loud whisper. Phone usage was discouraged while privacy curtains were encouraged.
Lucky for us, the parents in the bay right next to us were pretty easy to talk to, that is, when we weren’t blocking each other off with privacy curtains. Austin had to return to work pretty quickly so I spent a lot of time up there alone during the day. Our friends had twins the day before us and they unfortunately spent time in the NICU too. However, thanks to COVID, we weren’t allowed to go see each other in the unit and were limited to elevator rides and conversations while scrubbing in.
I had two big struggles as a NICU parent, aside from the general idea of it. Leaving my newborn with strangers and going home without him was the hardest thing I have ever done. It came with guilt, shame, and fear. Rationally, I know that this was not my fault and there was nothing I could have done to prevent the circumstances but that mom guilt sneaks up really fast! Secondly, seeing that tiny baby hooked up to every monitor imagined, a feeding tube, a PICC line, and constantly getting poked broke my heart. Thank God he will never remember any of this trauma because that sounds like a LOT of therapy for a little guy.
For anyone that has to go through this or has gone through this my only advice is to be patient with your baby, but more importantly, to be patient and forgiving of yourself. My inbox is always open for any questions, details, a helping hand, advice, and a shoulder to cry on. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!