Clockwise: Stella in her open crib @ 2 weeks old, with Jason filling out discharge paperwork, Zoey in her incubator until she was able to regulate her body temperature on her own at around 2 weeks old, Zoey about a week old, Stella about a week old with a feeding tube.
One year ago Zoey and Stella were healthy enough to come home for the first time from the NICU! They were both in the hospital for 2 weeks after birth to gain weight and for Zoey, to be able to stabilize her own body temperature (wondering if this had any connection to her extra cranial fluids?) and for Stella, to learn to eat well (which is definitely not a problem now!). They both came home together (yay!) and were so tiny that they still didn’t fill out preemie clothes, were just under 5 lbs. and the car seat straps didn’t tighten enough to fit around their bodies so we had to pad around them with NICU wash cloths. Packing them up in the NICU that night was so amazing and moving that we didn’t get any pictures of it, except for a grainy one on JD’s phone. There was so much stuff crammed into the stroller around the babies that they sent us home with that it seemed we were leaving for the wilderness for a year (well.. that’s kinda true). The NICU staff walked us out, gave hugs and all kinds of advice. I think we both had feelings of joy and relief mixed with overwhelming fear of what lie ahead. Just 2 days later we celebrated 6 years of being married!
I have very few memories of the last year, but some of the most vivid ones are of the NICU and the caring, reassuring conversations the nurses had with me while I sat in that darkened quiet room with my girls as they slept. And the long, silent, awkward ride up to the NICU in the wheel chair by a hospital worker when I would come every day to visit but wasn’t well enough to walk there myself. Then there was the young, unmarried mother of twin 2 yr. old girls that found out 1 week before she delivered (about a week after I delivered our girls) that she was having another set of twins. They also turned out to be twin girls. She was pacing around in the NICU waiting room in her gown not even 24 hrs. after their birth in a horrible daze. She was laughing off and on too with a worried look on her face, while her family swirled around her on their phones spreading the incredible news.
Its amazing how life can change literally in one heartbeat- mom and babies’- and leave us reeling with so much joy and so much anxiety at once. I remember hanging on moment by moment. Calling the NICU every 3 hours, even through the night, to keep tabs on how much each ate, Zoey’s temperature, have a little conversation with their nurse and when they’d be home. It seemed like they would never come home and now, a year later, I can’t imagine not having a house full over chattering, bickering, dancing, smiling and screeching ladies. I think often of how lucky we are and how close we teetered to the fragile edge on many occasions through the pregnancy, birth and 1st year with Zoey and Stella. The gravity of those early, worrisome, sleepless and fleeting days will surely never leave me.
I’ll give the NICU staff a shout-out for you in a few weeks!