Today a lady came into my store, and as 99 percent of my customers do, she inquired about my tiny Willow, who was riding around strapped to the front of me in her soft and cozy wrap. The lady, Kay, asked how old she was, then remarked about her being so tiny. I explained that she had come 10 weeks early, and that really, she’s just barely past her due date. I could see Kay was listening with heightened interest as soon as I said Willow had been premature, and she quickly proceeded to (ask and then–) take Willow’s picture, get my name and phone number, and ask if I would keep “Natalie” in my prayers.
Natalie is currently in the hospital on full bed rest. She’s 26 weeks pregnant with her first child, and doing everything she can to keep her little one inside for at least a little longer. Kay asked if I would be willing to share with Natalie how we got through my time on bedrest and our months in the NICU. I, of course, readily agreed.
The rest of the afternoon, I thought back through those long hours, days, weeks and months. Now, barely a month out from our NICU experience, I think I’m finally starting to process our time there. And here’s my confessions of being a NICU mom:
Most days that looked like hanging out with my big girls during the day, and then after I got them to bed at night, kissing my husband goodnight, and making the hour drive up to the hospital to stay with Willow through the night. Two months of (mostly) sleeping in the NICU with machines beeping and alarms sounding, plus getting up every two hours to pump, and every three hours to diaper and do skin-to-skin while Willow got her feeding through a tube, was exhausting, but you just can’t think about sleep. When you’re a mom, you just have to do what you have to do…I’m sure most of you can relate!
It felt like my heart was being ripped out every time I left my sweet, tiny baby to go spend time with her sisters, and it felt like it again every time I had to kiss them goodbye and leave them at the door crying when I left for the hospital. There was a lot of heart ripping going on during those two months, but it was just a season, and it (thankfully!) passed.
And then, in between the back and forth is just a lot of waiting. …waiting to see what will happen next, waiting for test results, waiting for her to grow, to learn to eat, to be able to stabilize her own heart rate, to maintain her own temperature, to breath on her own. Hours and hours of waiting….mostly just you and the baby, waiting to the sound of the same quiet lullabies playing on speakers, nurses walking by in the halls, alarms piercing the air when a heart rate or SAT level drops too low, and machines abruptly splitting the silence as they signal that a feeding has been completed.
While my family waited in the waiting room while I gave birth to my tiny but healthy baby girl, a church family waited while a member of their congregation birthed her full-term stillborn child. They all knew the baby had passed before the woman ever went into labor, and the woman’s church family stood in the halls singing worship songs to bring her peace while she endured the excruciating pain (both physical and emotional) of birthing her lifeless child. This child had been healthy and perfect just days earlier at a routine visit, but had somehow gotten her cord wrapped around her neck and was gone before the doctors could do anything to help her.
I cried as my sister told me the other woman’s story. I may have had difficult months ahead of me, but it was nothing compared to this woman. I realized how fortunate I was to have my baby in the NICU. It was a gift to have Willow alive and fighting. It was a gift to have her in a great hospital receiving wonderful care and all the help she needed to grow and be healthy. Not every mother has that luxury. From that moment on, I refused to take the bait of self-pity. My baby was alive! We had much to be thankful for. We kept an attitude of thankfulness, and minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, we made it through our time in the NICU.
Sometimes we go through seasons and we just have to give our best and hope it’s good enough. This time it wasn’t. My best wasn’t enough to keep my baby inside of me for the recommended 40 weeks. It wasn’t enough to keep my family or my business OK. But my God was enough! It was His grace that got us through. His grace kept me thankful. His grace kept my husband and I on the same page and supporting one another when stresses could have pulled us apart. His grace sustained my older girls as they somehow made it through those months of being constantly left behind. His grace helped steady me and kept me emotionally stable, despite the crazy postpartum hormones, NICU rollercoaster, and sleep deprivation. His grace surrounded Willow and brought her out of the NICU nearly a month earlier than doctors had predicted. His grace strengthened my husband to take on the extra load, and to support me and our girls with such selflessness and love.
Sometimes we go through seasons when we just have to give our best and hope it’s good enough. This time it wasn’t. My best wasn’t enough. But my God was enough! It was His grace that got us through.
So my biggest confession as a NICU mom, is that I am thankful. I’m so thankful for our time in the NICU – for the great medical care, but also for the things we learned and the people we met. And I’m thankful that it was just a season, a chapter in our story, and that it has passed. I’m thankful for my sweet Willow, who is healthy and growing, and an absolute joy to our family! She is absolutely my miracle baby. Most of all, I’m thankful for my God, who carried me through, who was there in the long hours that I felt alone – who always carries me through, who is always there when I feel alone. Who is absolutely enough, even – especially – when I am not.
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