NICU Tour

DAY 12

Praise the Lord for determined nurses. Being in the hospital for almost two weeks, I have become familiar with almost every nurse on the fourth floor. Many of them I have had several times, multiple days in a row. Several, however, I have only seen as they have worked on different wings. The nurse that was in charge of me today was one of those latter nurses.


The nurse shift took place at 7:00am this morning and apparently she had been discussing my situation with some of my previous nurses. She heard that I had been attempting to schedule a NICU visit for the past several days but had been unsuccessful. Well, she came into my room bright and early as a woman on a mission. My tour was going to happen on her shift if she had anything to say about it. I told her that I would like my husband on the tour if at all possible, and she asked how soon he could get to the hospital. Once I told her he could be there in half an hour she called down to the NICU and spoke with the charge nurse. The NICU nurse acknowledged who I was and then said they would do everything in their power to get us in at 5:00pm. I called Stephen and he said he would be there. We knew that even with the best laid intentions and planning when 5:00 rolled around there was still a chance we wouldn't be able to get in, but when the time came, my nurse knocked on my door with a wheelchair and triumphantly said, "Your chariot awaits my lady." Praise the Lord!!


She wheeled me down to the admissions desk outside the NICU and instructed Stephen and I to wash our hands and arms thoroughly. Then she handed us over to the NICU charge nurse. She was an extremely busy woman who talked a mile a minute. We struggled to keep up with the information she was pouring out upon us. I'm not sure if I was prepared for what awaited us when she pressed the code and the automatic doors of the NICU swung open.


The area that we walked into was separated into three different sections. Little plastic toped containers that are commonly associated with the NICU lined the walls with an occasional open crib between them. Monitors were everywhere. Tiny bundled heaps lay in majority of the basinet containers. There were groups of people huddled around certain ones in the room. Doctors were seen standing over babies or looking at computer screens, nurses bustled back and forth. There was a lot of beeping. It smelled and looked very much like a hospital.


The nurse asked how far along I was. "Twenty-six weeks'" I said, still taking in the sights around me. She directed Stephen and I over to a small basinet and told us that this baby was 26 weeks. What baby? I thought. There was so much tubing and wiring going into the container that I had to stand up out of the wheel chair to see the baby. He was tiny. His foot was the size of the tip of Stephen's pinky finger. A penny could have covered his whole hand. His head was about the size of a small orange. His face was covered by a white bandage to help protect his eyes since he was laying under some light treatments. I starred at wonder and disbelief as I felt the girls kicking inside of me. The only thought I could form was "Lord, please don't let our girls come yet."


She continued to tell us about the various tubing and wiring coming out of the baby and what purpose it served. She also showed us several other babies at various levels of treatments. Some were able to be in open cribs with just some nasal tubing, others were laying under heat lamps with feeding tubes.


At one point she wheeled us into a waiting room for moms and dads to wait in while doctors and/or nurses did examinations of their babies. She gave us some reading materials and then tried to explain how visiting and feedings and other tasks worked in the NICU.  She explained that for our girls to be able to leave the hospital, they must be able to hold and keep a healthy body temperature,  be able to eat and gain back their birth weight, and they must be able to breath on their own without any intervention. They did not release babies based on a weight, just on if they could pass those three tests. She also explained that our babies, upon birth, would be assigned to two different NICU teams since they would each need immediate attention. Because of this, they would probably start their NICU experience separated from each other in different areas of the NICU. My mommy side did not like this. She did assure us, however, that they would do everything they could to put the babies next to each other as soon as possible, but kindly explained they couldn't guarantee it would happen right away. She said putting babies in the same container or crib together is not practiced there, but if a serious situation arose and we (as the parents) thought it would benefit our babies we were welcome to ask for it. She said while it is not the norm for them; they have been known to make special exceptions. She encouraged us to ask questions and assured us that their goal was to do everything they could for our girls. My mommy side liked that answer.  


I explained that they were going to take the babies at thirty-two weeks and asked if it would be possible to see a thirty-two week old baby. She thought for a moment but before she could answer, a dad, who had been sitting in the room while she was talking, said, "They can see ours!" She wheeled us over to where his wife was standing by a covered bassinet. They had twin girls. One was dressed and bundled up under a blanket with only a feeding tube. I was not sure of her current weight but she weighed  3 pounds 10 ounces at birth. She looked like a normal baby just much smaller. Her tiny little eyes were open and looking around The other girl looked more like the first twin we had seen upon entering the NICU. She was drastically smaller and weighed only a pound and some ounces. I wondered if it were a case of twin to twin transfusion (babies share a placenta and one baby robs the nutrients; therefore growing bigger).


By the time Stephen and I arrived back in my room, my head was whirling with all the information. I was glad to have the tour and to be able to picture the environment that our girls would be in, but was so desperately wishing that we would be able to take them home with us. This summer will definitely be broken up into two very difficult chapters in our lives. The first is my hospital stay; the second is the girls' hospital stay.


My thoughts as I think back on the tour this evening is what a great God we have. Not only did He create life as seen in these tiny, delicate babies, but He has allowed us the ability to learn and develop medical capabilities to sustain that life at such an early age. Each child in the NICU (and everywhere) bears the handprint of God. They are miracles and witness of God's goodness and the loving intricate care He takes in fashioning each one of us. I am looking forward to meeting these two little girls that he is so carefully forming inside of me at this moment!