Life in the NICU

Life in the NICU is something that most new parents never have to experience, in fact most people do not even know that there is such a thing in some hospitals. Underwood Memorial Hospital is one of those hospitals that has a NICU. This where I have experienced a lot of firsts with my son, the first time I held him, gave him a bottle, changed his clothes and his diaper, breastfeed him.... the whole time he was hooked to a monitor that told me what his heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen levels were and with nurses helping me with every little thing.

Nathan on CPAP

When I first saw Nathan after he was born before they took him to the NICU he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But I am sure that all mothers feel that way, :) When I first saw him in the NICU it was the first time that I was really afraid for him. They had him on a CPAP or continuous positive airway pressure, this would blow air into his lungs basically helping him to breathe. Because premature babies lungs don't always have the time to mature they have a difficult time breathing. Seeing your child on a CPAP is a pretty scary thing. But also seeing your child hooked up to a bunch of wires and IV's just adds to the fear. And he was also very small. Not as small as some preemies are, but he was still the smallest baby that I had ever seen.
Nathan was on the CPAP until the 28th of Jan then he was moved to a nasal cannula which is the plastic tube with prongs that go up your nose that gives you oxygen. That same day he had to be placed on a biliblanket because he had jaundice.

Nathan on Biliblanket

On the 29th of Jan he was moved from the open aired warming table to a closed in Incubator or Isolette where he remained until Feb 17th. This is also the day that my husband and I got to hold him for the first time. The Isolette kept his body temperature up for him until he was old enough to keep his temp at around 98 by himself. During the time in the Isolette Nathan had to be given a feeding tube that went into his nostril and down to his stomach because he was to weak to feed from a bottle, which he had been doing well at for the first couple of days. He still had jaundice on and off and would be under the phototherapy lights for most of the first couple of weeks.

First time holding Nathan In Isolette

During his first week of life he was visited by both set of grandparents, both aunts, one set of great grandparents, various cousins, great aunts, and adopted aunts and uncles (friends of mike and mine). He was quite the popular baby. It was our hope and the Neo-doctors hope that he would be discharged to go home by the time he was a month old and then we would be able to return to TN.
But until this time I had to learn to be a parent in the NICU with alarms from the monitors beeping at random times and being afraid that I would not know how to handle such a small baby. I also had to spend a lot of time reassuring myself and my family that things would be okay when I did not really know for sure what the outcome would be. This is the most difficult part of having a preemie in my opinion. The not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring, the wondering if that phone call is the NICU calling to tell you you need to get to the hospital, the fear that your baby will be worse and not better the next day when you get to the NICU. To add to this you have the grief of not having the perfect pregnancy, of not getting the last months of your pregnancy, of not being able to take your baby home with you when you leave the hospital. Worse for me, I was in a different state, away from my home and my surroundings, and soon to be away from my major support system. My husband, Mike, needed to go back home to TN to go back to work, that meant that I would be without him until Nathan was discharged from the hospital and we went back home.