If you have kids, and they’ve spent any time in the NICU you know that it is difficult to see your baby in there where you can’t help them, and have to trust that the hospital staff is taking the best care of them as they can.
Victoria went straight to the NICU after she was delivered at 36 weeks via emergency c-section due to HELLP Syndrome. After 12 hours, I was able to get into a wheelchair to be rolled down the hall to the NICU to meet my baby girl. I was in major pain just getting out of bed. They said I’d have to stand and wash my hands for 2 minutes before I could hold her, so I decided I’d be ok just looking at her because I wasn’t about to try to move any more than I had to. They rolled me in and I used sanitizer, even to be in there. They rolled me to her incubator and she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I just looked at her in awe of this little baby that was both me and my hubby rolled into one. She had the cutest little beanie on too! I started to get really warm… and I started gagging. The magensium sulfate is not a medication that makes you feel great, it actually makes you feel quite the opposite, but it’s goal is to help keep you alive. So gagging right after a c-section is the opposite of fun. I started panicking and did not want to throw up in the NICU so I had the nurse roll me out.
I went back to my room and waited until the next morning to go back to see her. I woke up bright and early and was ready to get up to wash my hands and hold my baby. We went as soon as they would let us in after the nurse shift change and I got to hold my baby girl for the first time. My hubby wouldn’t let anyone hold her except the nurses. He wanted to make sure that I was the first to hold our baby girl, and I am so thankful that he thought of that. I know other moms who didn’t get to be the first in their family to hold their babies and it is a big deal. We took pictures, I handed her off to Daddy and we took more pictures. I got to try to nurse her, which she didn’t really take to. I would pump in my room every 3 hours after I tried nursing, Ryan would take the milk down to the NICU, then come back and wash the flanges and bottles while I tried to nap and recover. He would feed her formula after I would nurse so that she would know that breast milk comes from mommy and formula comes from Daddy so as to not confuse her so early.
We did this schedule over the next 4 days. They released me on day 4, but weren’t going to release her until day 5. So… we did what any sensible first time parents would do and got a hotel room close by so we wouldn’t have to go home without our baby. We still got up every 3 hours and drove to the hospital to do our feeds. The next day we took a trip to Target to get everything we still needed, then went back to see if they were going to let her come home. They liked to wait until the babies were 5 pounds, but she had passed her car seat test and was doing great. So… we got to bring our 4 lb 11 oz baby girl home with us!
Daddy, who used to be a crazy driver, suddenly turned into a super cautious driver overnight. He had already started being a better driving with having a pregnant mama in the car, but now that he had this little baby girl to take care of, he was all about safety!