hi guys today I thought I would talk about my NICU experience, and if you
don't know what NICU is, NICU stands for neonatal intensive care unit and
that's the place where babies go when they're born and they need a little bit
more help either with their breathing with their body temperature or with
anything else and I went through NICU with my first son it was a very very
difficult experience I've spoken about my birth story which I'll leave linked
below but I haven't actually talked about this in depth and talking about
the emotions and the feelings which are often the hardest thing to deal with
when you have a child who is in NICU so I hope this video will be helpful to
some of you who has a child currently in NICU or if you are pregnant and some
concerns have been flagged up that your baby might need to go into NICU it's a
very tough thing to deal with and I hope that you can take something out of this
video to help you with your journey and if you've never been through NICU or
maybe you're just interested in knowing how it is and how does it feel for a
parent to have a baby in NICU so let's start from the beginning so my first
child James he was born in 2015 and my whole pregnancy was a very healthy
pregnancy but at 37 weeks actually at 36 weeks and six days I got picked up with
preeclampsia and I was taken for an induction quite an emergency induction
so I was induced the very next day when I when I turned 37 weeks and my baby was
full-term but his growth had stopped from about 33 weeks when I was told that my
baby was really small the doctors told me that the baby might need a little bit
of help after he was born and that he might have to be taken into intensive
care and that really scared me because he was my first son I didn't know
anything my first child I didn't know anything what that involved and what was gonna
happen to him if he was gonna be taken off me straightaway and all
they that they told me is that they would have to see as soon as he was born
how much care if any he would need I gave birth to him it was a natural
delivery and as soon as he was born he was very little it was the first thing I
noticed and he got weighed and he weighed four pounds and nine ounces
he was breathing fine everything was perfect so there were no concerns to
straight away I know that some babies can be a little bit more poorly and they
they get taken pretty quickly into intensive care because they need help
with a few other things but luckily for us James didn't need any help any help
breathing he was coping well so I we did
skin-to-skin straightaway I breastfed him and we stayed together for a good
four hours so we went to the postnatal area I went to have a shower and I left
my husband with a brand-new son James and he was there looking after him
holding him and he said that a doctor had come through to measure his
temperature and his blood sugar levels and they said that his temperature was
quite low and his blood sugar levels were quite low so that they wanted to
take him into NICU to monitor him a little bit more make sure that he was
okay so at that point James was still there with us and I was feeding him and
I was getting help with feeding from midwives and nurses and then an hour or
so later they came over and they said we're gonna take him downstairs to NICU
and we're gonna get him all settled in and prepped and then he can come and see
him so I think to us that was all fine because that's what we were told to do
but it just felt a bit surreal because we I just give him birth and now my baby
was getting taken away from me and it just felt really surreal but it didn't
feel real like it didn't feel like that's what was gonna be our lives for
the next few days or so until it actually hit me that he wasn't
gonna come back and sleep with me he was going and he was staying there and had I
known that I would have insisted to go with him and that's one of the things
that I feel like made me feel completely but I wasn't in control of that I didn't
know that I could go with him I got told that they were gonna prep him and then I
could come and see him and I said okay by tonight he'll be back with me and
we're gonna be sleeping in here tomorrow going home or whatever so yeah first day
he was in NICU he was only there for those two reasons to regulate his body
temperature and to regulate his body blood blood sugar levels and he wasn't
in an incubator he was just in a cot which was a warm like temperature cot
and I could see him I could touch him the first problem that arise dw-- us
that I wanted to breastfeed but because he wasn't holding up his blood sugar
levels he was wasting a lot of energy trying to breastfeed trying to get the
milk from me and I didn't even know how much milk I had at that point because it
was all colostrum and he was using up all of his energy and then his blood
sugar levels were coming up below and then when it came to actually doing the
measure of the blood sugar it was coming up low so what the midwives and the
nurses and doctors were telling us was that if you want to take your baby home
as soon as possible then maybe let us feed him through a tube or a bottle to
get his blood sugar levels regulated then you can get your breastfeeding
established when you're home and obviously I took that as the thing to do
being the first time mum and I went along with it I said okay let's get him
better let's get him well and take him home because I don't want my baby to
stay in NICU I just want to take my baby home and we'll get breastfeed and
established when we're there and that was my first mistake because and I was
never able then to exclusively breastfeed my supply went really down
obviously I had a baby that needed feeding but I wasn't feeding so my
breasts were being told there's no baby to feed so don't produce milk and it was
only on my third day in NICU that I got told by a lovely midwife why don't you
express and try and get your milk flow going and I started doing that but I was
already three days late and things never got back to normal so by the end of the
second day in NICU James was already regulating his own
body temperature but they wanted to get him in regular feeds I don't know if
every baby is like that or if every Nikki was like that for us it started
with two hourly feeds and then if he was regularly if he was holding up his blood
sugar levels every two hours then it was three hourly feeds then for how many
feeds and we could only be discharged if he was holding up his blood sugar levels
for for hourly feeds so a gap of four hours in between feeds and he would have
to hold up a certain level I can't remember what the number was of a blood
sugar and he at that point he was being fed through a tube so when they put that
tube in my heart sank because it just looked scary and it just looked not like
what I expected I was going to be going through and the emotions that I felt was
that I didn't want anyone to see my baby like that because I didn't want him to
think that he was any sort of weaker or more fragile than other babies so we
didn't want people taking photos of him with the tube on and now I still feel
emotion about it because I remember how I felt and now it feels a bit silly
because I know it's all part of his story as part of his life and it's who
he is he's a tough strong boy but at that point we did we didn't want it and
we were just really precious about him and about what was being done to him and
how he was being seen so that hit like a rock for us seeing him with that tube
and it was the best thing for him because he was getting the feeds without
getting tired and so we knew that it is just how it felt and the other thing
that felt horrible were the little heel pricks for the blood sugar levels as you
can imagine at first he was on two hourly feeds so every two hours he was
having his heel prick to get some blood sample to test a blood sugar level and
every two hours then every three hours and every four hours for five days I
think he was a Nikia for five days in total is a lot he's poor heels were like
full of marks and just to see your precious little baby with not some
little red marks on their heel from where all the places that they've been
drawing blood out of it's it's horrendous and most of the nurses and
midwives were really good they were very professional they do it quickly James
never cried he was just like he'd flinch a little bit and then they take out the
blood and they were just amazed at how strong he was but there was one
particular situation where someone took a long time to get the blood out of him
and it just wasn't coming out and James started to cry and scream and we just
had to tell them to stop that's went kind of like I remember my first lioness
maternal instinct kicked in and I just had to say no you're not doing it I
don't care you're not doing it so it was a really emotional thing for us and I
wanted to be there for every single time they did that just just to make sure
that he was okay it's just a mother thing I think or a parent thing but yeah
so on day 2 I got told that I had to go home and leave James and that because I
I was being discharged I didn't need any more care but James had to stay and at
the moment I got told that I couldn't understand I just refused I said no I'm
not leaving my baby here and I'm not going home without my baby this is just
not normal it's not natural and the people that were looking after us
were very lovely and kind and trying to get me to understand the practical side
of thing but I was only thinking with my heart and my emotion my emotions and
they were telling me that I could not I couldn't so I protested I cried and I'm
never like that I'm usually sort of like I accept things that are reasonable but
I didn't and I just said this just doesn't feel right
eventually came to my senses and realized that I had to go home that I
couldn't stay in hospital admitted as a patient for five days taking up spaces
for other people who needed care more than me and so got discharged the second
day state spent the whole day with James in NICU and then went home actually the
whole way to the car I was in tears sat in the car first time that I was
leaving the hospital since arriving at the hospital pregnant leaving the
hospital not pregnant not with my baby just didn't feel right and to this day I
can't think about that without wanting to cry because it was horrible of us all
I can describe us and I remember talking to my husband and talking to him and
saying I just don't I don't want to do this I don't want to leave the hospital
I don't want to go home this feels wrong without my baby and I just remember
crying the whole time in the car and getting home and getting under covers
and crying seeing the Moses basket next to the my bed empty and just saying to
him I'm gonna be here for an hour but then we're going straight back to
hospital and I'm gonna stay there and yeah so that day came and went and I
went back to the hospital I stayed there the nurses told me that I was welcome in
NICU at anytime that I wanted for as long as I wanted that's the only thing
that gave me the peace that I needed to go home and leave James there he was
under amazing care and I was being told that I could be there at any moment I
wanted so I stayed there for as much as I could but then I
I had to go home he was there for five days I had to go home to shower to eat I
didn't want to do any of these things I felt tremendous guilt a lot of guilt
doing anything for myself so if I was home and I was eating I felt guilty that
I wasn't with James if I was showering or sleeping I felt guilty that I wasn't
with him and in hindsight I should have actually made the most of a bad
situation and thinking there's nothing I can do about it there's nothing that I
can make it better I can't have my baby any sooner with me why don't I get some
sleep and rest whilst I can because when he's home I'm not gonna be getting any
of that and that's the one thing that I would say to any mom who is going to go
through NICU don't beat yourself up you're doing everything you can make the
most out of a bad situation and get some rest get some food make yourself
stronger because it's a tough deal and I didn't do any of those things so I was
going to hospital every single day more tired because I wasn't sleeping and I
wasn't doing anything for myself I just felt like I needed to be mom and I
needed to be there next to him and not at home so yeah so then he was getting
progressively better he never got worse at any point but he just was struggling
to meet those targets they wanted to see at for hourly feeds three consistent
readings and we got one reading then we got a second good reading for Ally feeds
and then the third one he dropped again so we were back to square one he had to
do another three not so three Lots or four hours is 12 hours so every time he
failed one of them it was going to be another 12 hours that he would he'd have
to stay and yeah all the beeps and all the noises after they two or day three I
started to get used to the beeping and the noises and it's it's tough you're
there with a lot of mums going through the same thing you empathize with them
all and you get to know them in their babies and it's really difficult there
were a lot of babies in very serious conditions much more than James was so
I did my best to help any mums that were coming after me kind of like with my
experience of being there for a day or so but yeah that is that was the hardest
part of NICU so then at day five he day four he met his targets he was ready to
go home and I got offered the option to either take him home or to spend the
night in there which they call rooming in and they have a room where parents
can stay with their babies just to build up a bit of confidence if you're not
confident in what you're doing yet and then you go home the next day which is
what I chose to do I wanted to make sure that I could look after him because I
know this is not true but I felt a bit less of a mum because I'd been a mom for
five days without a baby at home so I felt like I didn't know how to look
after my baby because I missed out on those first five days and I had people
there constantly to help me I had people there to help me bath him help him me
feed him help me change his nappy with everything and I felt like suddenly I
was gonna go home and I wouldn't have all this help I wouldn't know what to do
and so I chose to room in and I think it was the best thing he gave me a lot of
confidence to handle him on my own through the night knowing that I could
at any point press a buzz and someone would come to help me but that I could
do it by myself we also had a first aid course offered to us because we were
there at the hospital and before we can we took James home which was amazing so
day five we took him home and we've had him since and he's been perfect and
healthy and we looked after him we never failed him all those worries and all
those doubts they eventually slowly disappeared and they became less and
less and less but I must say that Nikhil made me a lot more of an anxious moment
then I thought I would be and it was only because it's a scary thing you
don't know you don't think that your baby is in NICU because of things that
are silly in your mind whatever your baby is in NICU for it's it's tough it's
scary it's life-threatening even and so I felt at home
like his life dependent depended on me being there for him a hundred percent of
the time and I needed to be for him before I was for anyone for me for
anyone and that kind of dictated how things went for us and slowly I became
more confident as a mum I think that came with time but yeah we had a very
positive nikkyo experience with conflicted emotions and difficulties but
everything worked out well in the end and I know and I'm sure that anyone who
goes through Nik you feel feels similar conflicted sort of emotions and all
these feelings maybe slightly different and maybe with a slightly different
situation but I'm sure that they are similar so if you've been through this
please comment below share your experiences I find them very interesting
to read but more so I think people who are watching this video will find them
helpful because it's not just me talking about my experience if you leave your
comment below everybody can read it and share lots of experiences together and
help each other because that's what we're here for
in this amazing parenting community and if you're interested in hearing more
about NICU experiences or just birth stories make sure you go to channel mum
calm and watch lots and lots and lots of us lots of mums talking about their
experiences as mums so without further ado I'm gonna take my snivel with me and
yes so I hope you enjoyed this video I hope you found it helpful useful
interesting anything if you did give it a thumbs up share it with your friends
if you think that they might benefit from it and hit the subscribe button if
you want to see more videos from me I hope you're all doing well and I'll see
you in my next video bye
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