NICU

Life in the NICU is nothing like I imagined.  It is a world of its own, completely foreign, and absolutely fascinating.  If you have never been in one it is beyond comprehension.  The Syracuse NICU has an average of 54 babies!   They rarely go down into the 40s and have been as high at 75 recently.  I would guess about 95% of the babies are preemie, and most of those are micropreemie.  Crouse Hospital is a specialist center so they cover a large region of NY but I cannot believe how many babies were in there.  Katie was massive in comparison to the others.

When you first walk up you have to use an industrial hand washer to clean your hands.  They have antibiotic scrub at every crib so you can clean your hands again before you touch the babies.   They have rooms and rooms packed full of monitors, equipment, privacy screens, chairs, etc. there is barely enough room to move.  Most of the babies we saw were enclosed in incubators and the parents have to slip their hands in through holes in the sides.  Katie was kept in an open air crib, thankfully!

The NICU nurses are amazing.  The babies in the worst condition can have two nurses on the one baby full time.  The babies that are more stable have one nurse for two or three babies full time.  That means there are about 30 nurses in the NICU and there are two shifts every 24hours, so there are about 60 nurses a day! 

The NICU nurses assigned to Katie were wonderful.  They were kind, taught us how to manage the monitors, let us change her diaper, take her temperature, and helped me feed her.  They allowed us to do what we could so that we felt involved.  They were willing to help but also willing to step back and let us care for our baby.  They really are angels on earth.

It seems inconsequential but it was really nice that they had clothes for the babies to wear rather than just diapers or bleached white cotton generic hospital clothes.  They had a huge room full of all sizes of infant clothes and blankets, all happy patterns and adorable.  They would pick out cute outfits so the babies seemed more individual.  They cut little holes in the legs so the wires could come through.  It made me happy that they took the time to dress the babies when it would have been so much easier to give them all the same.   They would also let the parents bring clothes or blankets or even pictures to put in the crib.

Before having Katie I never imagined having a baby that I would be unable to care for immediately.  It was very scary not knowing what would happen with Katie’s heart or if she would have major complications from the Down syndrome.  It was wonderful having, trained, professional, caring people, watching Katie full time.  It reduced my stress knowing that the nurses would know immediately if something was wrong.  It gave me time to recover, heal, and regain my strength so I could take over when Katie was ready.