From Incubators to Inspiration: What the NICU Taught Me

Just a few hours into life

Never did I think that I would be a NICU dad. Perhaps it was arrogance or perhaps it was naïveté, but I never considered our baby boy would be born preterm.

The story of his birth is a long one that I will tell at another time. Right now my focus is on lessons that I learned during our stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. My goal is to help those who may be facing a NICU stay gain a bit of insight on what to expect and help those who may have experienced the NICU to process what they went through.

1. Ask Questions. Lots of Questions.

For those of us not in the medical profession, in the NICU you are exposed to a lot of new terms, unfamiliar medical information, and perhaps most confusing, the metric system. All this new information comes at you rather quickly. It can quickly get overwhelming.

I am not one who under normal circumstances likes to ask a lot of questions; however, having a baby in the NICU is far from a normal circumstance. In order to understand what is happening, to advocate for you little one, and to simply have peace of mind, you must learn to ask questions. Ask as many questions as you can. There truly is no such thing as a bad question. You are not going to annoy the medical staff. In my experience, every doctor, nurse, respiratory therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, etc. was more than happy to answer questions.

2. NICU Babies Are Stronger Than You Think.

My little guy was born at 32 weeks and 4 days and was growth restricted. At birth he weighed 3 pounds and 1 ounce. The first few days of his life were the most frightened that I have ever been in my entire life. He looked so small. So fragile. He needed a CPAP machine to help him breathe. He was hooked up to monitors to track his heart rate, breathing, and oxygen levels. He had an IV through his belly button. He was, by all accounts, completely helpless.

And yet, the strength I witnessed in that little baby blew me away. There was not even the slightest bit of quit in him. As I would walk the halls of the NICU to and from his room, I would see dozens of babies. Some in better health than mine and some in worse. The one thing that each of those little ones had in common was a fighting spirit. I remember saying to my mother one day that babies in this situation probably do not even know that quitting is an option. All they know is fighting and that is all they are going to do.

It was also amazing witnessing the physical strength of my son. I lost track of the number of heel sticks in order to check his blood sugar. I held his hand while he got an IV in his arm that seemed to barely even phase him. His ability to hold up his head at just a couple weeks of age and despite being so tiny blew his mother and I away. I asked one of his nurses if it was normal for a baby only a couple weeks old to have the head control that he did. She said that it is not uncommon for premature babies to end up being stronger than babies that are born full term.

3. Babies Will Grow At Their Own Pace And You Just Have To Accept That.

One of the most common things our doctors reminded us of (basically on a daily basis) is that we were on the baby’s time. He was in charge. If you are anything like me, you want what you want and you want it five minutes ago. This mindset does not work with a NICU baby. They are going to grow and develop at their pace and there is little that doctors, nurses, or parents can do to speed this up.

We ran into a number of issues that slowed down our baby’s growth. His digestive system needed more development which caused difficulty having bowel movements leading to vomiting and slow weight gain. His endocrine system was slow to develop which caused him to have low blood sugar and delayed his weight gain. Learning to let babies develop at their own pace is not easy, but you need to remind yourself that they will get where they need to go. They just will not get there at the pace that you want them to.

Two very sleepy boys doing skin to skin in the NICU

4. The NICU is Very Isolating and Lonely.

The experience my wife and I had in the NICU was unique as we were out of town when our son was born, but regardless of if you are home or not, the NICU is a lonely place. Yes, there are numerous nurses, doctors, other staff, other families, and if you are fortunate enough, your own family that you interact with on a daily basis. But ultimately that does very little to combat the isolation of the NICU.

The feelings are hard to put into words. How can you, though surrounded by people, have such intense feelings of isolation? Its almost paradoxical. You are often prevented from caring for them as freely as you would like. You just want to pick them up and cuddle them back you can’t. Honestly it is difficult to put into words how you feel as you stand next to your baby with chords and IVs and breathing masks everywhere. It is a feeling you cannot comprehend until you experience it. Everything feels so foreign. For me, I bounced back and forth between feeling completely emotionally overwhelmed and completely emotionally numb. I felt as if I had to put on a brave face for my wife, my family, and my friends. It was hard and it was lonely.

5. You Must Take Care of Yourself In Order to Take Care of Your Baby.

As cliche as this may sound, it is like when the flight attendant instructs you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you. The NICU experience is exhausting physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If you do not take time to take care of yourself, you are not going to make it. If that means going home to take a nap or get a good night’s sleep, do not feel guilty about taking care of yourself. Your baby needs you and need you to be the best version of yourself.

Here is how you can take care of yourself during a NICU stay.

Talk about what is going on.

I am fortunate enough to have a great support system. From the moment we found out we would be delivering early the were no shortage of phone calls, texts, and emails. My wife and I had plenty of opportunities to speak about what was happening and constantly leaned on each other for support. We talked things through on a daily basis and helped each other to process what we were experiencing. We also had our families to talk to. In addition we had several phones calls with our pastors to encourage us to keep going. The strength gained from talking through our emotions helped us to get through our NICU stay.

Its okay to cry.

I like to think that we as a society have evolved past the thinking that “real men don’t cry.” Unfortunately I am on the internet enough to know that it is not exactly true. Let me be clear — especially to the men. It is okay to cry. In fact, it is healthy. One day life was great. We were two months away from our little guy joining us and everyone seemed healthy. The next day the health of my wife and baby were in jeopardy. That is a lot to process. There are a number of emotions you experience in this situation — fear, grief, guilt, anger, happiness, peace, excitement, confusion. I found that one of the best outlets to process these myriad emotions was to just let the tears flow. I have no shame in admitting that I cried every day during our four weeks in the hospital. It was cathartic.

Allow others to help.

If you spend twenty-four hours a day in the NICU with your baby, you will not survive. If you family is available to help, let them sit with the baby while you step away. Get fresh air, go sit down and eat a nice meal, have date night with your spouse. SLEEP. You need to take this time for yourself. It is not easy. You will worry about your baby the entire time. But you need to get out. Even if you do not have family available to sit with the baby, there are nurses. Let the nurses do their job. Your baby is in good hands. Because we were so far from home, we were able to stay at the Ronald McDonald house. We took full advantage of this. We left every night to get at least a little bit of rest. We would of course worry. A couple of time we would go back in the middle of the night. But we did try our best to prioritize rest. Rest is essential. The NICU journey is long.

Finally going home after a long month in the NICU

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I hope these words can be of help to someone. If you are currently on a NICU journey with your baby, I hope something I have written can make things at least somewhat easier. If you have had a child in the NICU and are having difficulty processing the trauma (as I certainly am), I hope something here can help you put into words what you are feeling. Also, to anyone reading, what did you learn or are you leaning in the NICU? Feel free to leave a comment. I would love to know what the NICU taught you. Thank you.