My son Kyle stayed in the NICU just under a week. Lightning-short compared to an average NICU stay. Once we arrived home from the NICU, I found I was rather detached from my baby and the other people who didn’t experience that madness. It surprised me since we wanted nothing more to be home and “normal” and then once we got there, we didn’t know what to do! Mom gets to deal with nursing after only pumping for baby. Dad probably is backed up at work, and the family’s big kids need a lot of attention and consoling. Our entry home was not the picturesque moment I pictured for 9 months. Instead we worried, cried, soothed, and were pretty dazed. Did you know that it’s normal to have issues after time int he NICU?
Here is my advice: talk about it. Acknowledge the hurt and pain the family experienced, both with their baby and the others in the NICU. Even with Kyle, who had minimal medical intervention and drama, the hurt was significant. Lost expectations and scary diagnosis codes caused me to experience a plethora of emotions… I finally identified them as grief. I was grieving over the picture of a pretty family that I thought we were getting. I was full of anxiety and it was all I could do to not stare at Kyle’s left arm, waiting for a seizure. It was scary and could be easily isolating to a family.
If you get the chance to hear mama, listen and also choose your words CAREFULLY. Ask her to be honest with you if you hurt her feelings or if she needs you to talk or not talk about certain things. I cried many a tear over our friends who had healthy newborns. I was jealous, plain and simple. The other moms would sit around and discuss night feedings or swaddle methods and I would sit, clutching my infant, wondering what tomorrow would bring. Kyle was really sleepy due to his medication and people would comment about how “lucky we were to not worry about that kind of stuff.” Implying that “normal” would have been an inconvenience. Not super thoughtful words. Better choice of words: “what a pretty baby, he looks like daddy” or “I’m so proud of you guys” or “I’ve been thinking about you.” Ask what is hardest and see if you can help. (For us, it was shooting 4mLs of very thin liquid medication into a newborn’s mouth twice daily. Was miserable. My tip here? Dropper, not syringe, or a bottle nipple filled with the dose. And swaddle. And sing.) I was also sensitive to any sort of complaining I heard from moms around me. I was so darn joyful to have my kid(s) alive and home. Still am, really. A perk of the NICU is a fresh perspective.
My #1 pet peeve for Kyle’s arrival home was people assuming things were just fine and treating us that way. The “oh! he’s doing so well, right?” was really hard to answer. I SO wanted to respond positively but I couldn’t. And it was not fun having to rehash his story and prognosis over and over agin. Nine months later, I love telling his story because it is woven into who we all are. But when it was new, I resented others’ chipper optimism, mostly because I wasn’t there yet. The best response I had was another NICU mom who cradled my two-week-old, looked me in the eye, and reminded me that being a mom is a challenge, no matter what. She heard my (sometimes irrational) fears and just listened. No tips. No patting me. Just listened and nodded and said yes, it was so, so hard.
Other helpful tips for NICU families, once home: host playdates if they have big kids… send kids home fed and clean to make it easier on mom. Ask if you can do anything more than bring food over. Let mom & dad have a date night or lunch out. Get mom out of the house and let dad watch baby for a girl’s night. Ask mom to call you if she wants to talk or vent. Offer help for follow-up dr appts, there are SO many. Do not compare any children or milestones to that NICU one! Don’t tell “horror stories.” (Fact: I was bent down, oh-so-carefully placing Kyle in a stroller, when a lady came by and told me she knew a family whose child had seizures from birth and he had just passed away. DON’T DO THAT. Messed me up for days!) Keep sick kids (yours, hers, anyone’s) away from that precious baby. Google or do something to understand where the family is, medically, so they don’t have to rehash the info for you.
Mamas of the NICU, we are a brave, rare breed of women. You are amazing. It is SO HARD. I’m thankful I got to experience the craziness… it made me a better mom and a better friend. What else did I miss? I think I expressed my raw emotions better in Kyle’s one-month-letter when it was fresh.
