Our NICU Journey

I shared our birth story and everything I went through to bring our beautiful baby boy into the world. But now it’s time to share his story about the time he spent in the NICU.

I first want to acknowledge how grateful we are to have a happy and healthy baby boy. I know everyone’s NICU story is different. Some people have much longer stays than ours and some people don’t even get to take their sweet babies home. I’m writing this post to share our story.

It’s definitely a hard story for me to share. It was a very emotional week for us. We were so happy and excited to finally meet him. Scared that he might not be okay. Sad that he wasn’t there in the hospital room with us. And also grateful that he was being so well taken care of.

I will try my best to share this story as I remember it. A lot of it is already blurry, especially as I was going through my own recovery at the time.

Jupiter Medical Center opened a brand new NICU only a few months before Aaron was born, in December 2019. I remember it opening while we were going to the hospital for weekly birthing classes and they were excited that babies could now be delivered there at 34 weeks. This sounded very exciting for other people but I had a healthy pregnancy and made it to 40 weeks. I never expected to have my baby go to the NICU.

While I was in labor I had a fever and the baby’s heart rate would drop when I would push. My doctor mentioned they were monitoring it and the baby might need to go to the NICU if he didn’t cry right away. A NICU nurse came in to my hospital room to set some things up for the baby. But I still thought everything would be fine. I thought of course he would cry when he came out, that’s what babies do.

When our baby finally did come out, everything happened so fast and was such a blur. I remember seeing the doctor holding his little body. I remember him being in my arms for a few seconds. And then I remember looking over and there was a suction is his mouth and then he finally cried.

I was able to hold him for another few minutes while waiting on a transporter to bring him to the NICU.

He was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen but also looked kind of scary. His eyes were glazed over and his face was swollen and a little blue. We cried and talked to him and took a few pictures and then he was off to the NICU.

We later found out our baby had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and every time I pushed, he would get stressed and poop. This is what probably caused my fever and they were concerned about an infection in his lungs.

That night the NICU doctor came back with an update. The only thing I remember him telling us was that I needed to start pumping that night if I wanted to be able to breastfeed. I’m sure he had a lot more to say, but like I said we were overwhelmed and exhausted and I was recovering myself. (He also called our baby boy ‘she’ which made us a little nervous).

Around 1:30am the nurse brought Jon to go see him. Because of the epidural, I wasn’t able to get out of bed or go visit him right away. He came back with pictures to share and reassured me he was okay.

Then at 6am, they brought me in a wheelchair to the NICU to go see my baby boy.

When I was moved to a recovery room, they were kind enough to move me to the room closest to the NICU. Our sweet boy was the only baby there. We would visit him throughout the day and Jon would bring our family members one at a time to go meet him. I was so excited to tell my parents his name and at the same time so disappointed I couldn’t be there to see them meet their first grandchild for the first time.

In the NICU he had every cord and wire attached to him – a feeding tube, IV for his antibiotics, oxygen and a ventilator. He spent a day under a blue light for jaundice and had to wear an eye mask. We could barely see his face.

I was pumping every 3-4 hours. And if we were lucky enough to get even one drop, Jon would run it over to the NICU on his gloved finger and put it on the baby’s lips. This was recommended by the doctors and nurses but he became known for it in the NICU.

I would go back and forth between visiting him, just sitting there watching him sleep, and resting and recovering in my own hospital room.

Every day got a little better.

First they took out the ventilator. And then the oxygen. And then the feeding tube.

After I was discharged from the hospital that Friday afternoon, I didn’t leave. I spent most of the day just sitting there staring at him.

Eventually my milk came in. I was able to pump enough for him to drink in bottles, instead of formula. I also had a lactation consultant come to the NICU to help with breastfeeding.

Coming home without him was by far the hardest part. I thought I was okay and held it together leaving the hospital. And I was fine that night while we had dinner with my family. But later that night when it was just me and Jon, I finally let my emotions take over. I cried and I cried and Jon held me and promised he would be home soon.

We spent most of our time visiting him in the NICU, only leaving to eat and sleep.

One day we got to the hospital and we could finally see his whole face. All of the wires and tubes had been removed. I finally got to see how beautiful my baby boy was. They had weaned him off of all of the machines. All that was left was the 3 little wires on his chests for the monitors and the IV to finish up the last couple days of his antibiotics.

We waited to share the news or make any announcements on social media until he was home. It didn’t seem fair to him to share his pictures in the NICU at the time.

He had to take (and thankfully pass) a hearing test and get his last dose of his antibiotics. We had to watch an infant CPR video and make his first pediatrician appointment for the next day.

Finally, the doctor cleared him to come home.

We got him dressed in his little golf pajamas and strapped him into his car seat. They brought a wheelchair for me to sit in with his car seat on my lap. It felt silly to be wheeled out of the hospital days after I walked myself out.

While we waited outside for Jon to get the car, an older woman looks at Aaron and said to me “this is the closest you’ll ever be to God.”