A interesting article for this morning. 5 Reasons Not to Hate the NICU Posted by Dr. Nathalie Maitre One of the hardest days of my life as a NICU parent was not what I would have expected it to be. It was the day I went home without my baby, after spending every waking moment since my emergency C-section by his incubator. I never knew I had a dream about what it would be like to have a baby until that dream was taken away. As we finally drove away from the hospital, four long days after the birth of our child, I remember thinking, “NO, NO, NO! This is not happening! I am not supposed to have empty arms! I am supposed to have my baby in the back seat and be able to put him to sleep in his nursery, nurse him and show everyone how perfectly beautiful he is.” This wouldn’t be the last time I would have that thought over the next three months in our NICU journey. But over time, something extraordinary happened. My old dream was replaced by an even more wonderful one: My scrawny, saggy-bottom fuzzball of a son growing strong in his own way, leaving the NICU, and meeting every challenge life would throw at him with his family by his side. I realized that clinging to the first dream was as silly as a teenager believing that Cinderella needed a prince to rescue her and give her glass slippers to go dancing. Really, if you want a beautiful pair of dancing heels, take your cleaning skills somewhere they’re appreciated, save your pay and go buy yourself your dream shoes! I don’t want to minimize how awful it is to have a child in the NICU. I’m saying that sometimes laughing at tragedy makes it easier to handle. I cannot truly understand how another parent feels, but I can remember the emotions I felt when my son was in the NICU. So in the spirit of finding something real and positive even in the NICU, when you’ve just gone through utter terror and chaos, here is my list of the top 5 reasons NOT to hate the NICU. #5: You have a reason not to look like a celebrity after giving birth. No one expects you to wear anything but a hospital gown, ratty slippers and a frown of pain in the NICU for the first week or so. #4: You should be eating a lot of nutritious food so that you can make breastmilk, which is the most powerful medicine for your NICU baby. The best part is that you’ll lose weight even after eating all those French fries dipped in a vanilla milkshake! (It sounds gross, but try it.) #3: Your baby will have 2 birthdays, the day he or she was born and your due date. That means two official reasons every year to celebrate your wonderful child, although it also means twice the cleanup. #2: You will never again have a babysitter like a NICU nurse. These nurses are calming angels of caring who demonstrate the utmost responsibility, competence and intelligence. After that, you can look forward to hormone-charged, barely-legal-to-drive teenagers as babysitters. #1: You have a baby, an amazing, incredible creature who will change you forever. So make new dreams for yourself and your family, and if you have time, share your reasons to NOT hate the NICU with us.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 20:52:25 +0000