NICU Thoughts

I am not always very good at spotting the differences between NICU babies and full-term ones.

Miss Hotspur is doing very well, all things considered. She's working on getting back to her birthweight. She worries them by spitting up now and again. (Her big brother was a spitter too - every time they tell me, looking grave, that she spat up, I want to laugh. Or ask if she also sneezed. That was always good for spectacular upchucking from Danger Lad!, and no one worried about him. They keep careful track of how many milliliters she spat out - "about 6", "just a little spit, 2-3 ml", "almost 10 overnight..." I want to pat their heads and assure them that she'll grow out of it, it's just a laundry problem.) She's breathing on her own, and she's been off caffeine for two days now. She's maintaining her body temp. She's getting most of her food by g-tube (up her nose and into her belly), but she does like to nurse when she's got the chance.

The NICU LCs have the following pieces of advice:
- Given my supply, I can probably get away with just getting up to pump once during the night. To which I say, what the hell? Are they recommending that some poor women get up more than once? I understand the importance of establishing and maintaining supply, but for the love of little green apples, pumping 35 ounces a day ought to get me permission to sleep through the bloody night if I can. And I wonder at what point exhaustion begins to counteract the supply-building effects of hooking oneself up to machinery every two to three hours.
- Hotspur will probably only nurse once or twice a day when she comes home. Please understand, Hotspur nurses once or twice a day NOW. When I can only really visit for 3-4 hours at a stretch. If the idea is to transition the baby to feeding entirely from the breast (and I assure you, that is most certainly the idea), why on earth would I limit her access so drastically? I'm home! I can wear her around and let her have at it as much as she wants! I'm happy to give her extra calories, we can use the bottle as much as we need to, but there is no reason I can see why she shouldn't be at the breast as often as I can stand to have her there.

Throw in the limited number of comfy chairs in the NICU, the small number of breast pumps, and the critical undersupply of freezer space, and I'm surprised that anyone leaves that building breast feeding.

In the Hall (More NICU Thoughts)

The hallway leading to the NICU is decorated with pictures of former NICU babies, now in the very pink of health. They are listed by name, gestational age at birth, and birth weight. They are depicted swinging from playground equipment, riding ponies, having Bar Mitzvahs, playing lacrosse. There are little biographies with each picture.

The purpose of these pictures, and the associated text, is to make parents cry.

All of these children were born sooner and smaller than mine. All of them suffered from terrible health problems. They needed multiple surgeries, some of them. One little girl was tube fed for nearly nine years.

Today, all of these children are fine. Many of the children express desires to be neonatalogists when they grow up. Terms like "strong-willed" and "indomitable spirit" make frequent appearances. These kids can move mountains, apparently.

Before I read the posters, my question was "how long will my baby be in here?"

Afterwards, aside from being teary, I wonder if she will have enough NICU exposure to activate her latent superpowers.