Having a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for
any amount of time is an awful experience.
Whether your baby is there for an hour, a week, 2 months, a year, or
longer, it’s terrifying, foreign, and traumatic. As moms, we want our babies to be healthy and
to thrive from the very beginning, but not all babies start off their small and
fragile lives that way.
Even though it is in our case, the NICU is not just for
preemies. Babies with underdeveloped
organs, unexplained infections, deformities that threaten their ability to
grow, along with a plethora of other medical reasons, all find their way to the
NICU and bring their families with them.
As mothers we sit in a position no woman should ever find herself. We carry these precious bundles inside of
us. We know them before they take their
first breathe. As fragile, sick, and
premature as these amazing gifts are, they know us too. The first time I gently called out to my son
through the porthole in his isolette as I laid on a gurney next to him, he
opened his eyes. He knew my voice and
was searching for me. There was
something divine in that moment. The
bond that I only knew internally was one I could now see and experience face to
face. What a precious gift! Because of the circumstances these NICU
babies face, someone else takes over calling the shots on how we mothers are
allowed to interact with, feed, hold, and sometimes even touch our babies. No one in the world knows what it is like to
have those basic things stripped away…no one else but another NICU mother.
Over the last seven weeks I have met other women who find
themselves in a similar situation. Some
of their babies came in after Riley but got to leave weeks ago. Other babies arrived months ago and will still
be here the day Riley gets to come home.
The NICU is not a fair place. All
hands are lousy, but these are the cards that we have been dealt, and we are
left to figure out how to play a game we have never heard of and were forced to
join.
Connections become essential to NICU survival. The first days that we went to visit Riley, we
didn’t have a clue about where we were going or what we were doing. The more we returned the more faces we passed
in the halls became familiar and relationships began to develop. We shared our stories, all of them as
different and unique as the babies who brought them about. We had others show us the ropes so that we
knew what to do, what expect, and how to be advocates for our baby. Friendships began to grow and we soon found
ourselves cheer leaders for each other and their children. Being a NICU mom is not a competition. We aren’t clawing our way to the front of a
line that has a limited number of good prognoses being handed out daily. Instead, we become a team. We celebrate the joys of small milestones met,
just as we grieve the news of setbacks and turns for the worst. Who else knows what it’s like to be in this
place other than the woman who is sitting in the rocker across the room holding
her baby as he is hooked up to at least two machines that are presently
sustaining his life? This is how
community is born.
I have found a community in the NICU parents of Sutter Memorial. I have found women, Dan has found men, and together
we have found couples. We have been
immensely blessed by each other. They
have blessed us and we have been able to bless them. Two nights ago, my Lord orchestrated beauty
in my community. It was one of those
precious moments where I was able to see the circumstances for what they were
and knew that a moment like that one would never come again. I was able to cherish it all the more as it unfolded.
As Riley’s 8:30 feeding was rapidly approaching I made my
way through the dark and windy parking lot.
Walking towards me were three ladies in my community--it was my NICU
people. We stopped and much to my
surprise, on the phone was another one.
Her baby’s needs required a transfer to another facility of a higher
level of care and she was explaining to the three on speaker phone what they
were soon looking to face with their daughter.
She and her husband were among the first of the NICU couples to befriend
us and I was excited to hear an update on their progress towards an even
greater facility on the other side of the country. The four of us stood encircling an iPhone in
that dark and windy parking lot as we told her we would be praying for the
three of them, that we think of them often, and that we missed them. In all honesty, the NICU simply isn’t the
same without them. She said she would
keep in touch with their progress and plans.
We said our goodbyes and we went from five to four.
As NICU mothers do, it was now time to bring each other up
to speed on our own babies. We never
pass each other, even briefly, without asking and offering report on our
amazing fighters. We rejoiced together as
Anna had a great day with no bradys or desats.
Devin is doing so much better than he was last week. Samir is still struggling with his breathing
issues (and no those aren’t the baby’s real names…I still keep it real with
HIPAA :-) I was able to report that Riley is working on his bradys and desat
issues during meal time and has been doing better. As the updates took place, the Lord helped me
to realize what was taking place around me.
The five of us women were all raised in completely different
cultures, with completely different backgrounds, values, and beliefs, in
completely different parts of the world: me from California, one from West
Africa, another from Russia, one from Pakistan, and the fifth on the phone,
from The Philippines. We five women had
nothing in common but the NICU. I
realized as we stood there that it was our NICU miracles that united us, bonded
us, and allowed us to share something so personal with people we otherwise
would naturally allow to remain strangers.
Our conversation then turned jovial as we laughed about NICU life. I smiled as I realized it was only ok to
laugh because we were all card holding members of the same rotten club. What a unique moment it was to stand with
three women from all corners of the earth, laughing about the horrible
circumstances we all have yet to fully walk through. It was a moment I felt the Lord orchestrated
to show Himself in just one more way and I’m thankful He didn’t let it pass by
unnoticed.
I hated to leave, we were in rare form all being together
not upstairs in the hospital, but my son would soon be waking up and he would soon
be insisting on second dinner. I left
treasuring that moment when the Lord reminded me that in the loneliness and
isolation we always feel to some capacity here in Sacramento that He has, even
here, provided a community inside the chaotic, painful, miraculous walls of the
NICU.
He Gives Beauty for
Ashes
Strength for Fear
Gladness for Mourning
Peace for Despair
-Crystal Lewis
