Most women have a picture in their minds about delivering their first babies. Hearing the sweet little cry and being handed a warm, cozy little bundle almost instantly. Getting to nurse as soon as possible. Staring lovingly into the bassinet with your husband by your side. You imagine something like what you’ve seen on TV or in the movies, because that’s all you really know to expect. My experience was nothing like a Hollywood birth. Travis squeaked when he was born, and it was all I could handle, just knowing he was even breathing. He was held up to me, but barely, and only for a moment, before the NICU team, about six people, doctors and nurses, took over. I didn’t know what he weighed, how long he was, if he looked like Matt. I barely knew he was OK. As they prepared to take him out of my room and down the hall to the NICU, Matt and I agreed that he would go with Travis. I obviously wasn’t going anywhere, covered in blood and goodness knows what else. I was cleaned up, stitched up, and lay there recovering, wondering if all of that had really just happened. After a while, Mom went home, and the nurses left the room to tend to other patients. I was alone. Just as quickly as Travis had come into this world, my room emptied, and I was alone. It was just after midnight. I could do nothing, and I felt very helpless. “I should be doing something”, I thought. “I need to know what’s going on.”, but all I could do was wait for someone to come back, with news, with photos. The longer I lay in that room alone, the more worried I became.
Finally, Matt came in and told me Travis was fine. He didn’t need oxygen, thanks in large part to the rounds of steroid shots I’d received to help boost his lung function. He had a feeding tube and needed an IV. Once I was moved to the recovery room, I would be able to see him - briefly. My belongings were gathered and I transferred carefully out of the bed and into my wheelchair. Oooh, that was tender. I moved slowly. Or at least, as slowly as I could manage, nothing would keep me from him for very long. We entered the NICU and walked down to the end of the hall to the room he shared with three other very tiny babies. Once our hands were washed and sanitized, I could see him, but again, just barely. He was surrounded by nurses. One was holding a small flashlight to his arm so that they could try and find a vein to start an IV. You could nearly see through him. The staff struggled to get his IV started. He has his Mommy’s veins, difficult to stick, and his tiny size made finding them even more challenging. There was that helpless feeling again. I still couldn’t even see his face, and I reached over and picked up the photo that the hospital had taken and printed. I lingered briefly on the thought that so many other people, Matt and my Mom included, had already seen more of my son than I had.
There was nothing else we could do that night, and so it was upstairs to my tiny recovery room for us. I ate a very late, cold cheeseburger at 2am, absolutely famished, having not eaten in around 18 hours or so, and we passed out soon after; me, uncomfortable and still hooked up to too many things, and Matt, uncomfortable in a weird recliner-cot. The next morning, after brunch and an uncomfortable shower, and a lesson in using a breast pump, we went downstairs to the NICU. Finally, after about twelve hours, I was able to hold my son, for the first time. They call this skin-to-skin time "Kangaroo Care", and it is absolutely vital to Preemies. It can help regulate their body temperature, it can help regulate their breathing, and so much more. The nurse placed him on my chest, covered us with a warmed blanket, and left the three of us alone. It was so still, so quiet. Travis seemed lighter than air, weighed down only by the cords and cables and tubes and wires. Again, this was not your Hollywood Newborn. No flowers, no balloons or stuffed animals. Visitors were to be very limited and everyone, including the parents, must sign a release every day stating that they are healthy. Matt and I just sat, enjoying the first real moments with our son, for as long as we were allowed. Even with all of the medical stuff all over the place, in that moment, it was just the three of us, in our own world.
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| Our first family photo, 3/31/11. Not yet 24 hours old. |
Eventually, I ran out of energy, tired and sore, and the nurse came and put Travis back in his pod. We went back upstairs, probably ate lunch, though I couldn’t tell you for certain, and rested. I hurt in ways and places I didn’t know were possible. Nothing that Ibuprofen couldn’t handle, but my whole body felt different. And why wouldn’t it? 24 hours earlier, I was pregnant, and now I wasn’t. My body had grown to accommodate someone else, and now there was a vacancy. I felt empty, and in more ways than I was able to recognize at that point.
By late afternoon, we went back downstairs and sat with Travis. Too nervous to disturb him for Kangaroo Care a second time (I think one of the nurses was against it, having already “had a turn” that day, though in the next day or two, another nurse would encourage it as much as we were willing to do), we just sat, talking quietly about the things that had happened, the things we needed to do. We were both so surprised to see blonde hair and blue eyes, having assumed that my brown eyes would dominate and the dark hair in Matt’s family and in most of mine, would as well. We stared at his perfect, pink skin and tiny, features. I wondered how I would ever trim such tiny fingernails. A while later, I needed to pump again and was beyond exhausted, and we said goodnight. I hated the thought of leaving him for the night, it felt like I was turning my back on him, and for a brief moment, I sank into Matt’s arms with tears in my eyes. To go through so much to make sure Travis arrived in this world at all, and then have to walk away from him each night made my heart ache. We fell asleep watching a movie on the tiny, hard to hear and hard to see ceiling mounted television, and so ended our Thursday.
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| Tiny, tiny Travis |
Friday was filled with paperwork and packing, knowing that I would be discharged later in the day. We spent the day back and forth to the NICU and Travis’ bedside, talking to family and filling them in on the last few days, and around 8pm, after a busy day, we left the hospital and brought home instructions and paperwork instead of a snuggly, healthy baby boy. For the next six weeks, I spent every SINGLE day at the NICU. I wasn’t cleared to drive, so my mom and I usually spent the day there together. I went from bed rest to unstoppable, nothing was going to keep me from spending the day at the hospital. My son needed me there, and I didn’t want to miss a moment. I missed work events, time with friends, time for myself, time with my husband, but none of it mattered. There was still a lot left to do before the apartment was ready for Travis, and it all needed to get done, having no idea when he would be ready to come home. I was tired of bed rest and being told I couldn’t do anything, and now I felt the need to do it all. Three days after being discharged from the hospital, after a whirlwind weekend of shuttling back and forth, our Skyped baby shower, and tons of errands, I collapsed. We walked in the door that evening, after spending the day with Travis, and I immediately burst into tears. I was overwhelmed and exhausted. I needed a break, but how could I stay home? I couldn’t. I knew where I needed to be. I gave in to the exhaustion in the slightest way, allowing myself the morning, sleeping in a little, getting some work done, but by lunchtime, I was in the NICU.
Stay tuned for The NICU Part Two!
