Blogging for Preemies – a Mommy’s point-of-view

Published by Kerry | Filed under Causes

You’ve all read about how I have guilt issues regarding Max and Wes’s early arrival, but I don’t think I’ve ever conveyed it to the general public (and those who’ve never had experience with premature birth) exactly what it means to me that I am a parent of preemies.  When I posted my birth story, I was on a large amount of drugs to control the pain of both the c-section and the cerclage removal.  As I said in that post, I was “blissfully unaware” of how I would feel days, weeks, and months after the birth of our boys.  I definitely wasn’t prepared for the feelings of guilt, sadness, jealousy, anger, confusion, and fear that I would feel just because Max and Wes were born prematurely.

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It means that a good majority of the maternity clothes I waited three years to buy sat in my closet, barely worn or not worn at all.  This includes the jeans I spent a RIDICULOUS amount of money on because they made my very large pregnant booty look fantastic.

It means that the “list” I had taken several hours to excitedly write out was obsolete.  I didn’t have time to pack my hospital bag with fuzzy slippers, nursing tanks, and my good luck charm (that I had taken with me to the egg retrieval, embryo transfer, and every single doctor’s appointment I had). 

It means that my childbirth experience was extremely traumatic.  I never got to experience labor or contractions (that I could *really* feel anyway).  I never felt the excitement of being told that I was fully dilated.  I was in an operating room – scared and immensely worried about the health of both myself and our unborn children.  Would they be too small?  Too underdeveloped?  Too weak?  Would their lungs be strong enough to take those first few breaths?  Would I hear them cry?  Did I wait too long to come in (since my water had broken almost 12 hours before)?  Would there be infection?  Would I lose too much blood?  Would I die – never being able to know the joy of being a mother?  I’m sure that time was hard for Jeff, too.  The moment we had both waited so long for was stolen from us.  Instead of seeing my husband’s eyes fill with tears of happiness, elation, and pride, I saw them fill with tears of worry, nervousness, and empathy.  He didn’t get the chance to proudly march our boys into a waiting room full of anxious family members.  Instead he had the duty of calling our family and friends to tell them that our boys were born early, and to ask them to pray that everything would be okay.

It means that the first time I got to hold our boys wasn’t moments after giving birth to them like I had imagined, it was almost two full days later.  I realize that we were incredibly lucky to have gotten the chance to hold them so soon, as other parents of premature babies are forced to wait days, or even weeks before holding their little one(s) for the first time.

It means that even though we were freaked out about “not being ready” for the boys to come home, it didn’t matter anyway as they spent the first 43 and 51 days of their lives in a small room in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Swedish Hospital.  Their “coming home outfits” didn’t fit until they were almost four months old.

It means I was cheated out of my much-anticipated maternity leave.  I spent virtually every single day of my maternity leave in Max and Wes’s NICU room.  Most of the time during the week I was alone.  Some of the time I was with a friend, a nurse, a respiratory therapist, the social worker, or the NICU Chaplin.  I didn’t get to hold the boys much during the day because I wanted to save the few precious minutes that we got skin-to-skin contact with them for when Jeff was with me at night.

It means that instead of toting our boys around town once they were discharged from the hospital, we were toting their oxygen tanks behind us as we carried them from room to room.  Even the most simple task of changing one of their outfits was a chore because of all of the tucking and looping and disconnecting tubing we had to do.  Don’t even get me started on bath time.

It means that (because of their compromised immune systems) we can’t take them out during RSV season, which runs for 7-8 months out of the year (during the cooler months), until their lungs are a little more mature.  This means no dinners out as a family, no birthday parties, no large family gatherings (as the risk of them catching an infection or cold is too high – especially if there are children there), etc.  This will be the first Thanksgiving in Jeff and I’s almost 9 years together that we aren’t with his family for Thanksgiving, and that saddens me to no end. 

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With all of that said, it also means that we are some of the lucky ones.  We are the parents who actually got to bring home their babies from the NICU.  The ones who didn’t have to worry about making funeral arrangements and/or picking out a casket for their child(ren) during what should have been one of the happiest times in their lives.  The ones who don’t have a nursery filled with a crib (or cribs), dresser, toys, clothes…but no baby (or babies).  Saying that we are thankful and grateful and incredibly blessed to be among “the lucky ones” is an understatement.  It is something that both Jeff and I will never ever take for granted.  Ever. 

We blog for the preemies and families that were not so lucky.

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Looking on the positive side of our “situation”, it also means that I have a plethora of maternity clothes that I have been able to loan to friends and family – some of them BRAND NEW!

It means that I had less junk to haul back to our house after I was discharged.  Unless you count the countless bouquets of flowers, baby clothes, and gifts from friends and loved ones.  I had so many flowers in my room that I actually had to leave some behind for the nursing staff (or Jeff’s allergies would have gone berserk).

It means that I never got to experience an attempted vaginal delivery (both boys were breech).  Can you imagine???  Ouchie.

It means that unlike some women, I will ALWAYS remember the first time they handed me our little Wes (and handed Jeff our little Max).  I will forever have the look on Jeff’s face etched into my memory.  The tears that flowed out of both of our eyes because we were holding our little miracles.  So unreal.

It means that we had extra time to get our house and our lives ready for the invasion of Max and Wes.  We got more time to cuddle in bed – just the three of us (Rex).  More time to prepare for the chaos that has since taken over our lives.  Looking back, I wish we would have taken Debbie and Jan’s (our primary nurses) advice to “catch up on sleep while we can” because God knows I would now kill for those few extra hours of sleep we were getting every night!

It means that our boys got to spend their first three months at home with their daddy as their primary caregiver.  Jeff probably wouldn’t have taken 12 weeks off work (unpaid) if I had been able to be home with them, and I wouldn’t take that time away from my husband for anything.  I strongly believe that time with their daddy was both needed and wanted by both Jeff and our children.

It means that when they no longer had to rely on oxygen, things seemed a hell of a lot easier.  We could actually carry the boys from room to room without tripping over tubing or bumping our elbows on the door jams.  We reveled in the glory of no oxygen tanks for a good month after they were gone (and by “gone”, I mean not hooked up to the boys anymore – the oxygen company was full of excuses as to why they couldn’t pick up our tanks, so Jeff had to drive the tanks to them!).

It means that we get more quality time as a family of five (Rex).  Time when we get Max and Wes allllll to ourselves.  Time when we are the only ones who get to see the way they reach out to each other from across the floor, grasping each others’ hands tightly and not letting go until a new toy appears.  Time where we take in the giggles, the tears, the massive blowouts, the pouty lips, the screaming fits, the wide-eyes, the babbling, the crying – everything we had ever hoped for during those three long years.  Three long years of treatments, drugs, needles, tears, money, doctors, catheters, tears, money, “special little rooms” and “special little cups”, more doctors, nurses, tears, money, counseling, pregnancy announcements, baby showers, tears, and money.  We get our Hail Mary.  Our miracles of science.  Our perfect, healthy, happy, cuter-than-all-getout – Maxwell Allen and Weston Skinner.

Kerry