How I became a NICU preemie mom

Fiona is a rainbow baby. When I became pregnant again with her, I was so excited, but also fearful and anxious. The memory of the loss still vibrated in my body as she started kicking her little feet inside me. I felt like my body betrayed me before and I was afraid it might happen again. I saw a therapist and it helped. The sessions of delving deep into my relationship with my own mom, although great to prepare me for my own mother journey, were a bit too exhausting as my belly started growing. And then they stopped. Well everything in my life stopped. My water broke one morning, when I was only 28 weeks pregnant. 3 days in 3 different hospitals (I will in the future think twice about going on holiday while pregnant) gave us hope, maybe the pregnancy can continue. But the fourth day saw me whisked to the operation room for a C-section. The epidural didn’t quite work, not a great experience. But the subsequent high dosage of morphine and gas allowed me to descend to the beginning of my mothering journey from the heights of Mount Everest. She was tiny and very red and really only a blur. No resting on my chest and staring into each other’s eyes. As they sewed my internal organs back together I could see a group of people around her in the adjacent room. Then she was off to the NICU and they rolled my bed into a windowless room to wait there with my partner before we got to see her. He kept asking if he should let people know she was born. But, I didn’t even really see her! He showed me a short video he took when they were assessing her. I cried.

And so it started. Welcome to NICU, neonatal intensive care unit. I didn’t know at the time that I should feel blessed that we could room in with her. I thought its normal. Only after I learned that often there is no space for that and you only get to see your preemie a few hours a day. From the moment I saw her, I didn’t want to ever leave her. My body betrayed me again. She was supposed to be inside me. So I held her on my body every minute I could. I ran to the bathroom every time. I didn’t care if i peed my pants. She was supposed to be inside me. I waited and held her until I couldn’t. She was supposed to be inside me.

At first I lived in 2 hour circuits of pumping, feeding, skin to skin. After a while it changed to 3 hours, which was revolutionary. The magic was her reaching 1250g of weight. Every morning we would stare at the scale. 10 g more! I pumped milk and then fed her by holding up a tiny little syringe filled with my milk connected to a tube leading through her nose to her tummy. The first syringe was only 1ml big. I held the syringe up, watching the milk go down while I held her on my chest skin to skin. She was asleep, most of the time, sometimes opening up her steel blue eyes to gaze around. I held her until it was time to pump again. Sometimes I didnt want to let go and pumped while she was still on me. There was a lot of spilled milk, sweat and tears. Running to bathroom or to eat something to be back and start again. I felt bad for taking a lunch break because it would mean I would miss one whole circle as she could not be moved for an hour after feeding. She was supposed to be inside me. Either I made it back to hold her during the feed or I would lose this time. It took me a few weeks to allow myself to do that. Only after the need for my sanity mildly surpassed the guilt for not being there every moment.

I remember the first time I left the hospital and went outside. It was just to sit behind the building in a small green space. I sat on a rock and cried. It had been more than a week since it all started. I don’t remember how I felt the first time I went home, but I know that every time I left the hospital in those NICU weeks, I felt so strange. Fiona existed inside of that hospital room. But outside as if nothing changed. We would take turns when my partner finished work and I would go home for a few hours. Since she was born so early, nothing in the apartment was ready for her. It was just our old apartment. I would meet with friends for a coffee. I was a mum, but it felt like I wasn’t. It was the second year of COVID, so nobody apart from us could go in to see her. She would be a hidden secret baby until her discharge. It felt like she only existed inside that hospital and I was only a mum when I was there. I didn’t know what it is to be a mum outside of that room with an incubator and beeping machines. I hated all that beeping so much.

Oh discharge, the magical point in the future, when beeping machines, a foldable bed, being woken by a French speaking nurse at all hours, and endless hours of staring at hospital equipment would end. And then we will be happy ever after. Just get to be discharged. The conditions: independent breathing, temperature and feeding. The feeding part was the hardest, I wanted to breastfeed. She was so small, her not yet chunky cheeks lacking the power to keep the nipple in. Weeks of trying, sweating, crying. Weighing her every time before and after feeding. Fussing over 10g of weight.  And then the magic happened, and she was drinking. After 66 days in NICU we were heading home. The happy ending was to begin, but I had no idea it was all just starting….

September is a NICU awareness month. And although it is over a year since we left NICU with Fiona and I did all in my power to forget the whole experience, I cannot pretend that there isn’t a worry in me. Worry about how it had impacted her and us. And worry about if it was to happen again if we have the next child. There is still so much healing that we are going through and so are all the families of preemies, our little heroes. It is estimated that between 8-10% of all babies are born prematurely. That is huge. I still don’t know why it happened to us and there is so much research, knowledge and support that is needed.