"These are your babies,
We are just helping you care
for them." Empowered.
I spent my first days post-partum with doctors, nurses, and pamphlets flinging rules and policies at me faster than I could really absorb them, though absorb them I did. While I very much wanted to follow all the rules and do everything "right" in this strange new NICU land, I also very much wanted to just be a mommy.
I tiptoed carefully into the nursery, washed my hands dutifully, Purelled before touching any part of the isolette, and asked for permission to touch my babies. Some well-intentioned nurses would tell me: "Feedings are at 8, 11, 2, and 5. So try to come then so as not to disturb the babies in between." This sounded fair enough, I thought. Except that I didn't really know what that meant.
Could I only hold my babies at four short, prescribed times per shift? That really meant I could only hold Cameron twice and Joshua twice, because I couldn't yet hold both at once since they were in separate nurseries. Was I really not allowed to hold my babies at other times of the day? Could they really grow better in a little box than they could warm on their mother's chest?
But the last thing I wanted was to interfere with the team of experts caring for my boys, so I followed the rules to a T that first day and a half, feeling somewhat unfulfilled as a new mother.
On Day 2 around 11am I politely waited for Cameron's nurse to finish with another baby so I could ask if I was allowed to diaper him (which I had learned to do the night before). I asked, she said I could, but she questioned if I felt comfortable enough to do that. I did. Of course I did. And I certainly felt more comfortable taking care of my own baby than standing idly by as someone else did.
While this played out there was one other nurse in the room caring for other little fighters. I didn't know she was paying much attention, but soon learned that she was like me--the type of person who instinctively hears and absorbs everything going on around her.
Once this feeding time was over and I was ready to head off to pump, Cameron's nurse briefly left the room. The other nurse, Mariellen, who was not assigned to my baby at the time, but who clearly cared for him (and for me) all the same, took this opportunity to give me the single most life changing advice I would receive in the NICU. I can still see and hear her now. She looked me straight in the eye and said:
"These are your babies. We are just helping you care for them."
I felt a rush of relief as the dam holding back my maternal instinct was demolished. I was a mommy. A mommy empowered.
Thank you, Mariellen, for that gift.
Join our journey:
We are just helping you care
for them." Empowered.
I spent my first days post-partum with doctors, nurses, and pamphlets flinging rules and policies at me faster than I could really absorb them, though absorb them I did. While I very much wanted to follow all the rules and do everything "right" in this strange new NICU land, I also very much wanted to just be a mommy.
I tiptoed carefully into the nursery, washed my hands dutifully, Purelled before touching any part of the isolette, and asked for permission to touch my babies. Some well-intentioned nurses would tell me: "Feedings are at 8, 11, 2, and 5. So try to come then so as not to disturb the babies in between." This sounded fair enough, I thought. Except that I didn't really know what that meant.
Could I only hold my babies at four short, prescribed times per shift? That really meant I could only hold Cameron twice and Joshua twice, because I couldn't yet hold both at once since they were in separate nurseries. Was I really not allowed to hold my babies at other times of the day? Could they really grow better in a little box than they could warm on their mother's chest?
But the last thing I wanted was to interfere with the team of experts caring for my boys, so I followed the rules to a T that first day and a half, feeling somewhat unfulfilled as a new mother.
On Day 2 around 11am I politely waited for Cameron's nurse to finish with another baby so I could ask if I was allowed to diaper him (which I had learned to do the night before). I asked, she said I could, but she questioned if I felt comfortable enough to do that. I did. Of course I did. And I certainly felt more comfortable taking care of my own baby than standing idly by as someone else did.
While this played out there was one other nurse in the room caring for other little fighters. I didn't know she was paying much attention, but soon learned that she was like me--the type of person who instinctively hears and absorbs everything going on around her.
Once this feeding time was over and I was ready to head off to pump, Cameron's nurse briefly left the room. The other nurse, Mariellen, who was not assigned to my baby at the time, but who clearly cared for him (and for me) all the same, took this opportunity to give me the single most life changing advice I would receive in the NICU. I can still see and hear her now. She looked me straight in the eye and said:
"These are your babies. We are just helping you care for them."
I felt a rush of relief as the dam holding back my maternal instinct was demolished. I was a mommy. A mommy empowered.
Thank you, Mariellen, for that gift.
Join our journey:
Follow me on Instagram: @merrymommyblog
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