Life and Lessons From the NICU

When my husband and I decided it was time to add another little one to our family, we had no clue what we were in for. We'd had our first daughter back in 2020 and after having a baby in the middle of the pandemic (which I don't recommend doing) we decided to just wait a little while for baby number two. Surely our second go around having a baby would be a little less dramatic? Wrong. After a few losses that could be a whole separate blog post, we finally got a sticky baby in August of 2024. This pregnancy was shockingly and welcomingly normal. Until our 20 week anatomy scan. We were told that I had something called placenta previa. It was a fairly common occurrence in pregnancies, where, simply put, the placenta either fully or partially covered the cervix. After being reassured by the maternal fetal medicine specialist on staff that this issue often resolved on its own and everything would be just fine, we made a follow up ultrasound appointment for 31 weeks to check how things were going. I felt fine, things would be fine. If anything, it would just mean a full term baby delivered via c-section. Fine, no big deal.

As that 31 week appointment crept closer, I started to feel less fine. Looking back, I absolutely call it mother's intuition. That ultrasound was extra long and the ultrasound tech was extra quiet, which I knew was a sign that she saw something wrong. She finished, had me get cleaned up, and set me up in a room with a phone who had the exact same maternal fetal medicine specialist from before on the line. His first words were “I am so sorry to say that I was wrong, things are not fine” and after that I think I just heard nothing but a buzzing sound. It's a good thing my husband was there with me. Although the placenta previa issue had resolved, it left behind a new problem- vasa previa. There wasn't a placenta covering the cervix anymore; now there were exposed fetal blood vessels covering it. And if there were any contractions, real or not, it meant that those vessels could rupture, which meant fetal blood loss which then left a 97% chance of fetal death. This problem was more rare, more dangerous, and handled very differently than a c-section at full term. The doctor went on to tell me that in just one week from that day, when I hit 32 weeks, he would like me to be admitted to the hospital where I would stay and be under constant monitoring until they take my baby at 34 weeks so we can avoid any signs of labor. This meant an inevitable NICU stay for my soon-to-be premature baby. I had no choice, no control.

Just one day into my antepartum stay, a doctor from the NICU came to visit and discuss what we had ahead of us. I was given every possible terrifying scenario. Respiratory issues, weight and feeding issues, some nasty NICU infection that babies often get during their stay. I heard it all. I spent the next two weeks just stewing. I had no clue what was going to happen to my baby. But she needed to come early or else I ran the risk of not getting to meet her at all. I had no choice, no control.

Two weeks went by and on March 9th, my c-section date had arrived. The uncertainty in the air was absolutely smothering and everything felt like such an out of body experience. I was wheeled to labor and delivery, met my nurses and was prepped for surgery. Being at University Hospitals, a teaching school, I had a resident anaesthesiologist doing my spinal epidural with the supervision of the attending doctor. She was very careful, too careful, and too slow. My baby's heart rate dropped significantly. The doctors called code pink and my very normal c-section became an emergency. So now, my already premature baby was going to be entering this world in an even more risky scenario. It took less than 10 minutes for them to get her out and those NICU doctors were standing right there to whisk her away. They wheeled her to my side as I was being sewn back together and we had a very brief snuggle before they had to really take her away. After that, I had no choice but to start my own recovery, which was more brutal than it was supposed to be thanks to the rushed manner in which the surgery was done. I couldn't even function enough to go see my own baby. She was born at 10:22 am and I didn't get to see her until 2:00 am. I had no choice, no control.

Our sweet Cecilia, who we call Cece, was born at 4 lbs 7 oz.

She was small but she was mighty. Can you imagine walking into a room and seeing this tiny baby hooked up to 10 different machines and covered in wires? Shortly after her first breath, Cece experienced respiratory failure. Despite the steroid shots I got a few weeks prior to try to rapidly grow her lungs, she just couldn't breathe on her own. She was hooked up to a CPAP machine. We quickly learned that her lungs were still too weak and too “sticky” to expand on their own. She had respiratory distress syndrome. Within that first week, she needed two procedures to add more surfactant to her lungs to try to get her to be more independent with breathing. Her sweet little face was covered with tubes for weeks. I just wanted to see what she really looked like, tube free. But I had no choice, no control. She needed them.

Being discharged and having to walk out of that hospital without my baby was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to do, especially with the state of her health so fragile. For the first two weeks it felt like every day that we walked in there we walked into a new surprise, and we never knew if it would be a good surprise or a bad surprise. One day we walked in and were told that she was able to wean down to less oxygen support. Yay! But the day after that we walked into a dozen nurses and doctors hustling around my baby because they were worried about her intestines being obstructed after a green spit up moment. We expected to get to see her face and snuggle her closer than before, but we had actually back tracked and couldn't even touch her. That's just how the NICU goes. No control.

Our next big hurdle was feedings. Due to the CPAP and oxygen masks, she couldn't take a bottle or breast feed. She needed to be tube fed. In a situation where I relentlessly had no control, the only thing I could control was pumping milk for my baby. I hustled all day and all night to give that girl the best food she could have. Luckily, once her face wasn't covered with tubes and she could breathe, this baby took a bottle like nobody's business. Some babies spend weeks learning how to eat. Not my girl though.

Our final feat was to overcome something called apnea of prematurity. Although she was breathing independently, her little body still was trying to figure out how to function as one. She sometimes stopped breathing for a few seconds (apnea), and with that, her heart rate would drop (bradycardia). She always recovered from these on her own which was great, but she needed to be apnea and brady free for five days before she could come home. It was a waiting game. That countdown started and restarted four times. That's four times that we had our hopes up, just for it to come tumbling down with one beep from those dumb machines.

Finally, on April 8th, our time in the NICU ended.

I no longer had to ask to hold my baby or move wires around just to change a diaper. No longer did I have to smell the sterile environment and listen to the constant beeps and wonder if it was my baby or another whose heart rate just dropped. I couldn't get out of there faster with my little family.

Each of the 30 days that my baby was in the NICU were the most terrifying days of my life. I had no control over anything, and I left my sweet baby in the hands of others every single day. I have been a Type A person my entire life; constantly looking ahead at all situations so that I can do what I need to do to have the best outcome. The NICU taught me that no matter what you do in life, sometimes you just have no control and that's okay. Things can still turn out beautifully, just like it did for my sweet girl. She's healthy and you would never know everything she went through just by looking at her. It's changed the way I parent. I've become so much calmer, more in the moment, and less in the future. For my four year old, you want to make a mess while you play and have fun, even though it means more for me to do later? Have at it, there are bigger problems out there. For my sweet baby, you need me to rock you a little longer, even though I have a pile of laundry to fold? I'm here, laundry can wait. It also taught me that it's okay to be vulnerable. I can't tell you how many doctors and nurses I sobbed to in that hospital. It's okay to feel your feelings and it's okay to lean on others. This entire experience was done postpartum which is one of, if not the most, raw moment of a woman's life. I don't wish being a part of the NICU club on anyone, but if I had to be honest, it changed me and my values moving forward for the better.