The Homestretch

We are officially in the homestretch of our stay in the NICU! There are newborn diapers, bottles, and formula at my house, and Nick is bottle feeding so well that he was able to have his feeding tube removed yesterday. The  only thing that will be keeping us here will be the bradycardia events-he has to go five consecutive days without any before he is released. He is still having 1-3 per day and had three this morning, but we are close enough to talk about car seats and follow up appointments and Life After the NICU.

Like everything else about the NICU, the  thought of bringing him home is highly emotional. I think that  when we do finally take Nick home, it will be a long time before I completely process this experience and understand the extent with which it has affected me. The emotions I am feeling include:

1. Guilt- This is the one emotion I’ve felt more strongly than the rest.  One of the reasons why the first week after he was born was without question the hardest thing I have been through was I felt so responsible for him being born so prematurely. I *know* I didn’t intentionally do anything wrong, but it is a fact that he was born 10 weeks early because my body failed to keep him safe. According to my trusty google research, placental abruptions happen in 1% of all pregnancies, and are usually caused by obesity, smoking/drug abuse, or some type of trauma, like a car accident. None of that applies to me. I’ve never had any trouble getting pregnant, I’ve never miscarried, my two previous babies were full term with completely textbook pregnancies. I’ve never done drugs, I don’t smoke, and I’ve never drank while pregnant. I took my prenatal vitamins, kept all my appointments with my OB, and I only just turned 29.  My diet isn’t perfect and I don’t exercise as much as I would like during the school year, but I think I am healthier than most women my age. I know hospitals literally exist because healthy people get sick out of the blue, but still, I am too much of a control freak to accept that “sometimes these things just happen.” In the days after Nick was born, when I was still vulnerable from his birth, it was hard not to blame myself and feel as though I had failed on a massive scale. Not being able to breast feed didn’t help. I had made my peace with having to formula feed my previous two babies, but with Nick being a preemie with a digestive system too immature for formula, there was no arguement that breast milk was better than formula. Relying on donor milk was just another reminder of how my body had failed my son.

This type of guilt has gotten better over time, but the closer we get to going home, I have more and more guilt that I will be bringing home a healthy baby when so many moms who have placental abruptions never bring their babies home from the hospital. I think this will be the most challenging emotion to accept, and the one that will have the greatest impact on my  post-NICU life. My husband says we should just be thankful that our situation has turned out as well as it has and move on, but I don’t think that will be enough for me. My mind keeps circling back to the idea that we got lucky when, for no reason other  than bad luck, so many women did not. That is this week’s reason why I cry on the way home from the hospital, and this feeling leads me to...

2. Gratitude- And by that I mean overwhelming, overpowering, gratitude for the doctors and nurses caring for my child. At first, I was so devastated by how little I could care for Nick, but over time I came to see what a blessing it is that I get to witness so many good people saving babies, caring for their mothers, and helping the most fragile infants become strong enough to go home and begin their lives with the families every day. Having to be so dependent on strangers to care for your child, and then seeing how it is done with such love and compassion is another thing that has made this experience life changing. I sent my OBs cupcakes after Nick was born and plan to do something to thank Nick’s doctor and nurses, but there is no real way I could ever thank them or articulate how important they are to me. I need to and want to pay it forward, to make as positive an impact on someone’s life as they have in mine.

3. Anxiety-Another biggie in the world of preemies. I trust Nick’s doctor and nurses completely, and I know they will not send him home if there is any doubt he isn’t strong enough, but it is nerve wracking to think we won’t have an experienced medical professional steps away from us who can come running the second something goes wrong. It feels like I’m a first time mom again, and I know I will wake up to check on him during the night and that the first times I feed him at home will be stressful. But again, this goes back to how we completely depend on Nick’s medical team to know when he really is strong enough to go home, and how we have to trust that they are acting in his best interest.

4. Sadness- I don’t know if sadness is the right word, and I don’t know if I can articulate this well enough, but part of me feels a mixture of sadness,mental exhaustion, and relief. This whole pregnancy has been such an ordeal, and ever since I had my first bleeding episode at the beginning of October, Nick and his well-being is a stressor I have gotten use to living with. I still can’t imahine what life will be like when I’m not constantly going back  and forth from the hospital and I can hold my baby without having to adjust the wires that he is hooked up to. It’s so hard to imagine that one day he will be leaping off couches and running wild like my two-year-old does, but I know those days are coming, which leads me to...

5. Joy- I know I don’t need to write this, but I CAN’T WAIT TO BRING MY BABY HOME.  Graham is too young to understand what is happening, but Annabelle asks me every day when Nick is coming home. I cannot wait to see her finally get to hold him (another thought that has me crying), I can’t wait to introduce him to the rest of his extended family, and I can’t wait to have normal, routine, doctor-free days with him. We’re not quite ready to bring him home yet, but we’re close.