1. The hardest thing I've ever had to do.
Everything happened so quickly. I arrived at the hospital not feeling well and within two hours my babies were here. After experiencing the most intense morning of my life, my girls were quickly held up so I could see them from a distance, and rushed off to the team of nurses. I laid on the operating table, holding my husbands hand and tried not to look at the blood on the light above me. I didn't turn my head to the left where there were buckets of tissue and blood as Adam warned me. While my team of doctors finished with me, I did not know what was going on with my girls. I didn't get to see them again until much later, and at that, I still wasn't able to hold them until several days later. Healing in a room downstairs while my girls were upstairs was very difficult. I am very grateful I chose the hospital I did to have my girls. I could call up to their nurses, and they would put them on a monitor so I could at least see them from my room. When it was finally time for me to go home, I remember being in the elevator and seeing a pregnant woman. How strange it was to realize my babies were no longer with me. That is not something you can prepare for. Going home without your babies is just plain awful. This is a time you are supposed to be bonding with your little ones, holding them close. Instead I had to leave my babies with strangers and go home to finish healing. I cried most of that day and the next ones to come. Watching their little eyes follow me to the door and having to leave them there, I just had to keep telling myself this is what was best for them. They had the best medical care and their Angels watching over them.
2. Get to know your nurses
I spent a lot of time at the NICU. I wanted to be there as much as I could for my girls. After awhile I got to know most of the nurses that worked there. Instead of strangers looking after my girls, they became people I enjoyed chatting with and tried to get to know. Most of them were friendly, and full of knowledge. All the equipment was so foreign to us, so Adam and I both asked tons of questions. I wanted to know everything I could about what was going on with my girls. Don't be afraid to ask if you don't understand something. Most of the nurses went out of their way to show me things and explain how the equipment worked. Did you know you can request certain nurses? Same goes for one you simply do not get along with. Not everyone will mesh and there is nothing worse then leaving your babies with a nurse you don't trust for whatever reason. That's when you should talk to the charge nurse about whatever the situation is. They can always try and work something out where that nurse gets minimal time with your babies. Our nurses made the girls cute posters for their door, took their pictures along the way, and made us cards with their hand and foot prints. They were always surprising us with cute things they had done with the girls to try and put a smile on our face.
3. Alarms
Among the most stressful things you will experience in the NICU are the constant beeping of alarms. They are pretty much always going off in the NICU. Whether they are going off in your babies room, or anothers, you will hear them as you walk the halls. You will hear them in your babies room too. The longer you are in the NICU the better you will be at discerning the scary alarms, and the more regular alarms. They will go off when the feeding tube has finished, an IV needs to be checked, their heart beat is too slow or too fast, their oxygen saturation is too low, they are breathing too fast or too slow.. you get the idea. It can be very stressful to hear all the beeping and not knowing what is going on. There were a few times the monitors would say our babies weren't breathing, or that they had no heart rate, on the monitor and the scary alarms would start screaming. Adam and I would be in there by ourselves, not knowing what was going on, and freaking out thinking something was wrong. One time when Adam was holding little Ella, all of a sudden the alarms were ringing that she wasn't breathing. Turns out the way the electrode was lying, his body was interfering with the reading. We didn't know that until the nurse came in and told us. It was pretty traumatic for both of us. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes those darn things aren't connected all the way. The sticky part that attaches the electrode to the baby doesn't always stick. You can't always tell when they are in the swaddle that it's not stuck where its supposed to be. The baby could also start getting real fidgety and cause the reading to be off. If the nurses aren't running in, then your baby is probably okay.
4. Outsiders won't get it
As I stated earlier I had no prior experience at the NICU. I didn't know anyone personally that had to go through anything like this. I had no idea what happened behind those doors. Turns out, most people don't. During what is most likely going to be the hardest thing you go through, you will most likely be going through it with your husband and a select few family members. To keep germs down only a limited amount of people will be going with you inside. Your friends won't understand, and frankly, some won't care. People you thought would be there for you in your time of need, may turn their back on you. Sure they'll say all the right things, but when it comes down to it, you'll see who actually calls, texts, and shows up when you need them. If you're lucky, a few people may come by to force you to eat every once in awhile. Mostly though, your friends won't understand what you are going through. This is a time you will learn who your true friends are. Listen closely. I am thankful to have the good friends that I do. They may not relate to what you are going through but at least they will be there to listen and give a few hugs. A few people may even surprise you. I know I wasn't expecting my new church to step up, but they did. They even did more then a lot of people I was close to, and for that I am thankful.
-Katie
