NICU

Neonatal intensive care unit is a very daunting experience for any parent. You feel so helpless knowing that there is not much you can do but at the same time your baby is being given the best possible care.

Each morning when I arrive at the hospital its a "I wonder how they did today".

The procedure is as follows:
1.) lock your personal belongings away in the lockers provided
2.) wash your hands
3.) enter the room where your babies are
4). Greet your babies and touch them - no picking up unless the Sister says you can. You want to minimise picking up as often they might have fed and too much movement causes them to bring up milk
5.) check the chart to see if there was a weigh gain (yay!) or weight loss (nooooo!!!)

The most important milestones in NICU for a parent is a healthy thriving baby, a baby that is feeding well and gaining weight.

Babies are not discharged before they weigh over 2kg.

Fortunately Wade was over the 2kg mark but needed to feed properly where as Erin needed to feed properly and gain weight.

Babies are fed approximately 28 - 34ml milk through a feeding tube down their throats or down the nasal passage over a 2 or 3 hourly period. It all depends on how well they can tolerate the milk.

Moms and dads are encouraged to interact with the baby as you would do at home and you also get to bath and feed your baby. All very well but its not the same because at the end of each day you go home empty handed.

I hated these two weeks because I was dependent on people for transport as after my c-section I was not able to drive. I had a set time at the hospital because once I was fetched it was not easy for me to get a lift back to hospital to see my babies.

It was during this time that I truely believe that the wheels were starting to fall off. Something was a miss and I was not sure what was wrong but I did not feel like I thought I would. The nine months were over. I had two beautiful bundles of joy but why did I not feel happy?