When you have a full term baby you get sent home 1-3 days later with your baby in tow, and you just figure it out. When you have a baby in the NICU you aren't aloud to leave until you have taken a CPR class. I took the class as soon as I could so I wouldn't have to worry about it later. But I didn't know that my "education" would end there. The hardest thing to understand about a premature baby that was Laynee's size is that they look fine! On the outside they are a perfect tiny little baby. But on the inside, there are so many basic things that they just don't know how to do. Like eating! It takes them a lot more time then I ever expected to figure out how to eat, and how to eat without getting tired. Which means there is a lot of choking involved. I never thought I would have to learn how to stimulate my baby to get her to breath. I will never forget the first time she stopped breathing while she was eating. Her lips started turning blue before the monitors started going off. At first I couldn't believe that the nurse was watching me try to figure it out. But as she talked me through what I neede to do, I started to calm down a little. As Laynee started to breath again, I realized, my nurses hands were there the whole time. She was totally ready to take her at the chance that I was unable to do what I needed to do. I am SO glad she didn't. Although scary, I needed to learn that. I have had to use those skills since we have brought her home. I remember them telling me she would grow out of it, and I didn't understand how one could "grow out" of choking. But she did! Her brain is developed enough now that she knows what to do to recover if she is chocking.
I learned that every bodies situation is different. There were so many days that I would go home so discouraged because I had to sit there and watch someone take their baby home, and they had only been there for a couple of days. I had been there for 3 week! Why were they going home and we weren't?!?! Because their babies weren't as early as mine. Their baby could breath without oxygen, mine couldn't. Their baby was ready, my wasn't. I was lucky enough to be able to spend almost all of my time at the hospital. Kastyn was being taken care of by my in-laws, and even though I missed him like crazy, it was so nice to be able to spend all of the time I wanted(sometimes needed to more then wanted to) at the hospital. I didn't have to worry about getting home to get him from the baby sitter, and try and go back and forth all day. This however created a judging problem in my head. The mom of the baby next to use was never there! Her baby was born the day after Laynee and they were the same gestational age. He wasn't on oxygen, and picked up on eating a little faster then Laynee did. I was so so frustrated that I was spending all of my time there with my baby, and her baby seemed to be doing better. "Seemed" being the key word! He only went home a day earlier then we did. I had these terrible feelings toward this mom up until about 3 days before we were able to come home. I was walking out to my truck to go home for the night, and I ran into this mom in the parking garage. O crap I thought!! Now she is going to talk to me, and I am going to have to pretend to be nice to her. Come to find out, she had had strep throat for a week and then the rest of her family got it. So that is why she wasn't there for 2 of the 4 weeks that they were there. Plus she had 3 other kids at home, one of them a little younger then Kastyn, who begged her not to leave every time she needed to go to the hospital. She had tears in her eyes as she was telling me about this. Then she did it!! She said,"I am so glad that I can talk to you about this! We are both going through this together, and even though we don't know each other, I feel like we have this awesome connection knowing exactly how the other one feels!" Then she gave me a big HUGE hug! As I walked away, I felt like I had just been kicked in the stomach with metal cleats! This woman had just been so nice to me, and in the last three weeks, I had not one good thought about her! I was such a terrible person! However, I do find it much easier to slow my judgement on people I don't know. And I am committed to teaching this lesson to my children. You never know what someone is going through just by looking at them, or hearing bits and pieces of their life through a curtain.
I learned how to appreciate all the little things my kids do. Kastyn came to visit one night and got a couple of toys out while he was home. They didn't get put away until after we were home. I even vacuumed around them! Now my house gets really messy and I make him clean it up every couple of days. But I always remind myself how sad I was when he wasn't here to make a mess. Every milestone Laynee has made, big or small, has been so amazing to me! I get so excited every time she does something new! Just being able to pick her up and hold her for as long as I want is still an amazing feeling! It may also be a little bit of the reason why she is so spoiled!
I have always known that Wesley loves me. And that he will always be here for me when I need him. but this experience reiterated that for me. From the minute that we found out that our baby was really coming 8 weeks early he was AMAZING! I could tell that he was freaking out! Partly from the tears running down his face,(He NEVER cries. I think I have only seen it one other time in the 10 years that we have known each other.)But even though he was scared, he gave me the most amazing priesthood blessing! After that, I knew that no matter what happened or how hard it got, we were going to get through it. TOGETHER! We had a lot of alone time during that month, and I learned that it is possible to be intimate with each other even though we weren't aloud to be "intimate"(wink, wink!)
Like I said, it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. It was also the most AMAZING thing I have ever been through. I hope to one day help parents like me have as positive of a NICU experience as possible.
I learned that every bodies situation is different. There were so many days that I would go home so discouraged because I had to sit there and watch someone take their baby home, and they had only been there for a couple of days. I had been there for 3 week! Why were they going home and we weren't?!?! Because their babies weren't as early as mine. Their baby could breath without oxygen, mine couldn't. Their baby was ready, my wasn't. I was lucky enough to be able to spend almost all of my time at the hospital. Kastyn was being taken care of by my in-laws, and even though I missed him like crazy, it was so nice to be able to spend all of the time I wanted(sometimes needed to more then wanted to) at the hospital. I didn't have to worry about getting home to get him from the baby sitter, and try and go back and forth all day. This however created a judging problem in my head. The mom of the baby next to use was never there! Her baby was born the day after Laynee and they were the same gestational age. He wasn't on oxygen, and picked up on eating a little faster then Laynee did. I was so so frustrated that I was spending all of my time there with my baby, and her baby seemed to be doing better. "Seemed" being the key word! He only went home a day earlier then we did. I had these terrible feelings toward this mom up until about 3 days before we were able to come home. I was walking out to my truck to go home for the night, and I ran into this mom in the parking garage. O crap I thought!! Now she is going to talk to me, and I am going to have to pretend to be nice to her. Come to find out, she had had strep throat for a week and then the rest of her family got it. So that is why she wasn't there for 2 of the 4 weeks that they were there. Plus she had 3 other kids at home, one of them a little younger then Kastyn, who begged her not to leave every time she needed to go to the hospital. She had tears in her eyes as she was telling me about this. Then she did it!! She said,"I am so glad that I can talk to you about this! We are both going through this together, and even though we don't know each other, I feel like we have this awesome connection knowing exactly how the other one feels!" Then she gave me a big HUGE hug! As I walked away, I felt like I had just been kicked in the stomach with metal cleats! This woman had just been so nice to me, and in the last three weeks, I had not one good thought about her! I was such a terrible person! However, I do find it much easier to slow my judgement on people I don't know. And I am committed to teaching this lesson to my children. You never know what someone is going through just by looking at them, or hearing bits and pieces of their life through a curtain.
I learned how to appreciate all the little things my kids do. Kastyn came to visit one night and got a couple of toys out while he was home. They didn't get put away until after we were home. I even vacuumed around them! Now my house gets really messy and I make him clean it up every couple of days. But I always remind myself how sad I was when he wasn't here to make a mess. Every milestone Laynee has made, big or small, has been so amazing to me! I get so excited every time she does something new! Just being able to pick her up and hold her for as long as I want is still an amazing feeling! It may also be a little bit of the reason why she is so spoiled!
I have always known that Wesley loves me. And that he will always be here for me when I need him. but this experience reiterated that for me. From the minute that we found out that our baby was really coming 8 weeks early he was AMAZING! I could tell that he was freaking out! Partly from the tears running down his face,(He NEVER cries. I think I have only seen it one other time in the 10 years that we have known each other.)But even though he was scared, he gave me the most amazing priesthood blessing! After that, I knew that no matter what happened or how hard it got, we were going to get through it. TOGETHER! We had a lot of alone time during that month, and I learned that it is possible to be intimate with each other even though we weren't aloud to be "intimate"(wink, wink!)
Like I said, it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. It was also the most AMAZING thing I have ever been through. I hope to one day help parents like me have as positive of a NICU experience as possible.
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