Love, Kendra
Dear NICU Mama,
First of all congratulations! You just brought a beautiful life into this world, a little life that was meant just for you. I do not know your exact journey up until this point, but I know that we do share the common first home for our baby, the NICU.
I am so sorry that you are reading this right now because that probably means that you are in the NICU- where one second feels like one thousand. Where there are so many leads and tubes hooked up to your sweet baby. Where machines are constantly humming, beeping, and alarming. Where you hear cries from parents surrounding you. Where there is a constant busyness, yet you are still because you are watching nurses care so deeply for your child’s special needs. Where you begin to learn medical terms you never wanted to know and where you begin to research more than you ever have before.
Your journey looks so different than most and at this point I can assume, like myself, you are still trying to process how you and your full term baby ended up in the NICU that is filled with itty-bitty babies. You are searching for articles and posts about NICU life, but none of them seem to relate. How could this have happened? Your ultrasounds and labs looked great. You carried your baby full term. You made it to all of your showers and their nursery is ready and the car seat is in the car. You were prepared. Your baby was born at a healthy weight. But still, somehow you managed to be here in the NICU.
Our story in the NICU began five hours after my son was born. He was rushed to the NICU for low blood sugar and a temperature of 93 degrees. To this day the last picture of my son before the NICU still haunts me, knowing we so easily could have lost him before we even knew there was a deeper problem occurring. After a few days in the NICU my son was transported to a Children’s hospital nearby. We spent 188 days in this hospital and it is a place that I will forever be grateful for and call our home away from home. This is the place that diagnosed my son’s rare chromosomal abnormality (less than 20 worldwide so far). This is the place that performed life-saving operations on my son so that we would have the privilege of leaving the hospital with him.
Your days are filled with so many ups and downs-the roller coaster ride of the NICU. It seems as though every time your phone rings your heart stops and you wonder what this next call could entail. You spend so many hours pumping for your child even though they aren’t orally eating, or like our son, spent months getting nutrition by TPN (parenteral nutrition-nutrition that is given intravenously). But you do it, because you would do anything for that sweet life you brought into this world. You cry when you have to leave the hospital without your baby and you cry when you get home and walk past their nursery-eventually you shut the door so you aren’t so easily reminded. You spend hours researching what is going on with your child. And in all of this, something is happening. Something so beautiful is happening, momma.
Maybe you just got the diagnosis-a life altering one at that. Each day you are learning and researching what this may mean for your child going forward. Each day you are becoming stronger and more in love with that baby of yours. Each day you are learning every little detail about your baby. Each day you are growing into the perfect advocate that your child needs-the momma that your child will forever be thankful for.
So momma, when the days seem long and seem so hard to endure, know that something beautiful is happening, and that something beautiful is you and your growth as the best parent for your child. Know that I sit here writing this letter to you crying out for you because I wish I had found a letter like this when I was in your shoes. A letter to let me know, to let you know, that the life-altering journey you are on is shaping you into the best momma that your child could have ever been blessed with. Know that I am praying over you and your journey. Know that you are doing your best and that sometimes just breathing and making it through the day is the best for that day. Know that I wish I could hug you and let you pour your heart out as we wept together.
But more importantly, know that you are an amazing and fierce momma to your sweet baby and that you are so loved.
Love,
A Former NICU Momma of a Full Term Baby
