One Night in the NICU...

A few short stories from my summer...

One night we watched from a window at the NICU (top floor of the hospital) a wild fire on the hill grow from very small to a large ring. It was pretty far away, but we could still see the blinking lights from the fire trucks. Some lights at the top of the ring and some at the bottom.

One morning I came into the lobby and a man in slacks and a golf shirt was asleep on the couch with a large police radio sitting on the coffee table. He even had a hospital pillow. Each time i came in and out of the lobby he would be in a different position, but always asleep. I felt bad, but I didn't know how to help him. Sure enough by dinner he was gone.

One evening I was walking out of the lobby and a woman rushed in, holding a girl in her arms with bloody gauze on the child's face. "Where is the ER?" No one else was around and I had to stop and think because it is such a large hospital. I said we would find it together. It was a little tricky but we found it on our first try. Turns out the little girl had been attacked by a dog. She didn't make a peep the whole time we walked dow the hall. Either very brave or passed out. Not sure.

In the NICU if there ever is an emergency and a nurse needs help (usually in the OR delivery room) she hits an alarm which sounds thru the whole NICU. All the nurses jump up and run out of the room, except one stays behind to keep each room under control. The alarm turns off when they have enough nurses which is usually only a few seconds.

One night the alarm sounded and didn't turn off for several minutes. Shortly after that I noticed my pumping equipment was missing so I went to the front desk to ask about it. The nurse was on the phone and paused for half a second to explain they were in the middle of two emergencies. I had to leave the NICU and pump back at the guest house (the longer version of this story includes me losing my room key) and I ended up being late for yoga. As I crossed the parking lot I saw life flight take off, heading south, towards Primary Children's or U of U hospital. I started crying right there in the parking lot. Somewhere in the NICU was a very scared family.

The night my milk came in I thought I peed the bed. It was a rare night when I had the opportunity to spend it with Mike, and I was petrified my postpartum body had had a relapse from my childhood. It was so embarrassing then, but hilarious to me now. :)

I had to do laundry twice a week because I only had a few nursing shirts and a few sets of nursing garments. Also only one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts fit. I was car-less the first two weeks so I couldn't even go shopping for clothes that fit.

Mom and I loved going shopping. We would mostly just look but our favorite stores were Tai Pan Trading, Pier One, and Ulta. We also discovered Runway Exchange and of course we hit Walmart daily (or so it seemed).

Every time a full term (36 weeks or more) baby would come in the NICU all us long-term moms would gawk at the size of the baby. We would walk past a little slower as we ooed and awwed over the fat rolls and would whisper things like "it actually fits in an incubator?" and "it's the size of a three year old!" Obviously it was a mostly normal baby and wouldn't be in the NICU long, but it was encouraging to see such big babies.

The whole NICU knew if a long-term family was going home that day. I would peek over to their bedside, and sometimes try to eavesdrop on the exciting discharge speech from the staff. It was hard to be polite, but just the sight of going home was so enticing. It was kind of a reality kick, reminding me that all our hard work was about to pay off.

Little Bug's new trick

Hope you enjoyed thoughts from a NICU mom!
If anybody has any questions about the NICU, I am open to answering them here on the blog or privately in email. morango2tango@hotmail.com