You’ve just had a baby, and you are leaving the hospital. But instead of leaving with a cart full of balloons and flowers, new baby in arms, wheeled out in a wheelchair and attended to by the proud papa, your scene is different. You are walking out, no flowers, no balloons. No baby. You are blinking at the sunlight, glancing at your watch, anxious to get back into the hospital as soon as possible. Another new mom is leaving with her baby, and you stare with unconcealed jealousy. Why? Because your baby is still in there. You had a premature baby, and the nurses whisked him away to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) before you could even get your glasses on to have a good look at him. How long will he be in there? No one will tell you. That’s because no one really knows. It’s all up to your baby.

Having a baby is a wonderful, life-changing event. But having a premature baby is an anxiety-ridden, nerve wracking, life-changing event. Even while you wonder if your baby will be okay, you recover nicely and you are forced to leave the hospital. Nothing compares to the heartache of leaving your baby in the care of nurses while you go home, no longer pregnant, without your child. And through it all, you can be overwhelmed with mixed feelings of guilt, sorrow, terror, and depression even as you rejoice and try to celebrate the birth of your newborn.

I’m not going to even try to tell you what will happen to your baby. Every baby is different, and no one can predict. Instead, I’m writing this to help you get through the emotional journey of stopping your outside life and beginning a temporary life in the NICU. The change in your life is sudden, immediate, and completely necessary when you have a baby in residence there.

It is not all that uncommon. Approximately 480,000 babies will be born prematurely this year. Many of us who have endured it are now fiercely devoted to the charity, March of Dimes, for its work in finding causes of and in the prevention of premature births.

Emotional and Out of Control

Unprepared

If your baby is in the NICU, you know what I mean when I say that it is an extremely emotional time for your entire family. You are relying on nurses and doctors, most of whom you have never met before, to care for your newborn - who may or may not survive. And you’re not prepared! You aren’t even ready to give birth yet, you haven't even taken the prenatal class yet, and suddenly, BOOM. You’ve given birth and are now the parent of a very fragile child. You have life-altering decisions to make for yourself and your child, and you are hardly able to even focus your eyes because you cannot believe what they are seeing.

In your confusion and in the chaos, your eyes finally focus on your child. A tiny, precious newborn - a sneak preview of what’s to come. You shouldn’t be seeing your child in this state, and yet you are. You fear to touch her, afraid you might damage her somehow, yet you know that just being there by her side is somehow helping.

Grieving

There’s a mourning period. Even if your baby is surviving, you have lost the joy of a so-called "normal" delivery and birth. You missed out on the last weeks of your pregnancy, and you can never get that back. You wanted to feel the kicking, to complain about the uncomfortableness, to prepare your baby’s room, to ruminate over what the actual birth date might be. That’s all gone, all over, and it’s hard to let go of it. It is made harder because it's hard to put these feelings into words.

No Control

Even harder is that you have absolutely no control over the situation. You are physically exhausted from giving birth, and you are emotionally exhausted from the uncertainty of it all. You have no control over when you will get to take your baby home. No control over how much and in what way your baby is able to eat. No control over whether he can control his body temperature. No control over lung problems or infections or jaundice or anything. You cannot control the awful feeling that you are living in some sort of alternate reality where nothing is quite right. You cannot reach into your baby’s isolette and heal him with your touch, even though it may be your greatest desire.

What You Can Actually Do

But you can have some control. You can reach into your baby’s isolette and soothe his cries. You can pump breast milk to give him those precious antibodies that his body can’t make. You can dress him like a "normal" baby. You can talk to him and tell him of the outside world, a world that you hope and pray he will see.

Kangaroo Care

If you are allowed to hold your baby, try Kangaroo Care, which is holding your naked baby against your bare chest - skin-to-skin contact. Kangaroo Care has been shown to decrease respiratory distress, increase body temperature, reduce apneas and bradys, aid in breast-feeding, aid in weight gain, and decrease hospital stays. If you are uncomfortable holding your baby while you are naked from the waist up, just ask for a privacy screen.

Daily Care

You can participate in the daily care of your child. Change his clothes, change his diapers, take his temperature, clean his belly-button, feed him and clean him. The nurses will show you how to handle your precious one.

Learn as Much as You Can

You can quiz an grill all the nurses and doctors in the NICU until you have no questions left, and you can do it again the next day and the next and every day after that while your child is in their care. You can bring family members in, one at a time, to meet the new member of the family. You can take pictures and videos of your child just as you would if you had been able to take her home.

You can learn, from a professional, how to give your baby an infant massage. You can take infant CPR classes. You can talk to every tech in the hospital and learn the ins and outs of the monitors that are regulating your baby.

Make Your Baby Comfortable

You can minimize noise and light for your child. You can keep your voice low and soft whenever you are talking or singing to him. You can even request that your child be moved to a quieter spot in the NICU if the activity level is too high where he is. You can ask other visitors in the room to keep their voices down.

Keep your baby as comfortable as possible by swaddling his body, including arms and legs, in a receiving blanket. Put a hat on her since it is sometimes hard for preemies to regulate their body temperatures. Add booties for the same reason. Bring his own clothes from home so that he isn’t wearing hospital regulation clothes all the time.

You can keep your baby from becoming over stimulated. She cannot handle more than one thing at a time. If you are talking to her, don’t rock. If you’re rocking, don’t sing. It’s one or the other with preemies - more than that is too much for her to handle.

Take Care of Yourself and Your Partner

You can take care of yourself and your partner. I remember waking up from a horrible nightmare a few days after I’d come home from the hospital (buy my baby was still there). I felt my belly and knew something was wrong, but in my sleepy state I couldn’t put my finger on it. Suddenly I shot up in bed, panicked, shouting, "The Baby! Where’s the baby?!" I was petrified and couldn’t think where he was. I needed my husband at that point, and he was there for me in a way that no one else could have been. He was going through the same thing and needed me too. You can be there for your spouse too. Your child may have special needs down the line due to prematurity, and your marriage or partnership is crucial to your family now.

Last, but not least, when your baby comes home, if she gets to come home, then you can take a tiny sigh of relief, and prepare for the challenge of raising your child.

External Links:

• March of Dimes - Saving Babies, Together