Cory and I are a little old fashioned when it comes to our relationship-we met when I was 19, got engaged a little over a year later, and were married when I was 21 and he was 22 during our senior year in college. We were the first of all of our friends to get pregnant, and we started our family at a relatively young age compared to most millenials (I had Annabelle the day before I turned 24.) I have never once thought I was too young to become a wife or a mother, and I think the best part of being married so young is that we were able to create our whole adult life together as a team. Another aspect of our relationship that prepared us well for the NICU is the six years Cory spent as an officer in the Army. The Army put us in different situations, both good and bad, that gave us life experiences unique to our non-military friends that helped us to mature quickly and grow as a couple. These experiences included a nine month deployment, moving five times and living in four different states within six years, and, because of these moves, we have experienced what it was like to show up in a town far away from home where we didn't know a soul and built a life together there. In addition to the toughness our marriage gained from our time as an officer and Army wife, Cory and I work very well together in the sense that we are enough alike want the same things out of life, but different enough to compliment each others' strengths and weaknesses (for example, Cory can drive someplace once and immediately know the route by heart, whereas I still rely on a GPS to get around the town I grew up in, but I could rock a fussy baby into the wee hours of the morning without batting an eye.) We're not perfect and Lord knows he can make me mad, but I have been very blessed in the husband department.
Fast forward to my pregnancy with Nick. Cory had gotten out of the Army for good, and we had moved back to my hometown. As I have described before in earlier blog posts, my pregnancy was difficult from day one. Before any of the major bleeding began, the morning sickness and fatigue I felt between weeks 10-18 or so took it's toll on me (see my Health and Wellness in the NICU post for more details.) I was throwing up at least five times a week, and I would be so tired when I came home from school that I would fall asleep on the couch, and Cory would be left to make dinner and wrangle our two other kids through bath and bedtime. Cory's current job does require him to travel frequently, but, even before my first stay in the hospital, he was doing more than his share of parenting (he even had to wait for me to leave for school in the morning to make coffee because the smell would make me vomit.) During the days I was in the hospital with the bleeding from the subchorionic hematoma in November and December, and the subsequent weeks of bed rest that followed, Cory had to balance doing all of the parenting, keeping up with day to day necessities, like groceries and laundry, and then do his actual job on top of that. My time in the hospital also happened to fall on the the week before Thanksgiving and in mid December, when our schedules would have been jam packed with different holiday happenings, so me not being able to contribute to any part of our home life was especially difficult (though I did get a lot of Christmas shopping done while on hospital bed rest.)
One of the most challenging parts of bed rest, other than the tendency to google worst case scenarios and wait for something bad to happen, is knowing that I was making Cory's life so much harder. Yes, I needed to be on bed rest to keep our child safe, but I could see that he was feeling the stress of having to manage everything on his own. After Nick was born, despite the initial fear of not knowing how healthy he was, I think both of us were a little relieved that at least the weeks of bed rest were over, and I could go back to at least physically feeling like myself again.
Though you would have to ask my husband to know for sure, I know our NICU experience effected us differently. Maybe you could blame it on how immediately and ferociously maternal instincts kick in after birth, or the fact that my abdomen was the one being cut open, or maybe it was as simple as the differences in our personality, but we handled the 53 days our son spent in the NICU much differently. I know my husband approached the NICU much more pragmatically that I did (I think that is actually the understatement of the century.) Despite the inconvenience of Nick not physically being at home with us, and the understandable fear and anxiety that comes with the NICU, I think Cory knew that Nick was too premature to come home, so he would need to be in the NICU until the doctors were confident that he wouldn't have any immediate health complications, and that was that. Heaven knows it wasn't that simple for me.
For starters, Cory didn't have any guilt about the situation our son was in, and I don't think he ever understood why I did. To him, freak pregnancy complications are just freak pregnancy complications that can happen to anyone, and not something to internalize and obsess over. But, in fairness to me, it wasn't his body that was being stuck with needles and IVs, he wasn't the one being checked repeatedly for cervical dilation and receiving God only knows how many ultrasounds (I think there were at least 10 that I can remember,) and, ultimately, it wasn't his body that dropped the ball and caused a premature delivery. Not feeling guilty or any personal responsibility for the complicated part of my pregnancy alone made our NICU experience much different.
The best thing Cory did to support me, and possibly one of the greatest things he has done for me as my husband, is that he sacrificed so much time with Nick so that I could be at the hospital with him. Since his work and travel requirements usually prevented him from visiting Nick during business hours, his only opportunity to see Nick would be at night. Literally, every night, Cory would either stay back with our kids so that I could go to the NICU, or he would go to the hospital and come back quickly enough so that I would still have time with Nick. I know the reason Cory did this is because he knew I didn't just want to see our baby, but that I physically needed to be with my son and know that he was being well cared for.
If I had to give advice to a new NICU dad, it would be to follow Cory's example and understand what your partner needs. Cory knew that I needed to be able to be with Nick as often as I could, but I did need him to assure me that Nick didn't need me to be at the hospital 24/7, and to remind me that we had other kids who needed me too. We took the stress of the NICU out on each other at times, and there were points where I didn't feel like he was as understanding to me as he could have been, but, given the enormous stress of having a child in the hospital for an extended period of time, I think we mostly handled it as well as we could have. So, in conclusion, to any NICU dad who might be reading this post, please support your wife. Anticipate her needs, and be patient enough to allow her to process whatever emotion is weighing the heaviest on her mind today. Don't assume you will experience the NICU the same way, and also make sure that you force her to spend time away from the hospital, even if she hates you for it. Hopefully, she will be equally as supportive. Finally, remember to dwell on what a miracle your child is, and take time, even in the NICU, to count your blessings together.
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