The Easy Part?

This is the easy part. This is the easy part!? Shit, this is the easy part.

Having two babies in the NICU isn't a piece of cake, but it's a whole lot easier than having two babies at home. I mean, NICU = 24-hour expert care. All day, every day, there is a trained nurse assigned to do nothing except feed, change, clean, and burp August and Finley. It's amazing.

Meanwhile, I am like a bumbling aunt who breezes into the NICU every day for a few of hours, holds the babies, swaddles them badly, changes their diapers badly, gets them riled up, cries sometimes for no good reason and then goes home.

Still, I'm exhausted from merely visiting the babies.

Just so you don't think I'm a total loser, I do have a busy schedule. I pump breast milk 8 times in 24 hours. That means, my first pump of the "day" is at midnight, then at 5 a.m., 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Plus, I drive 10 miles to the hospital spend 4-5 hours with the babies, come home, eat, pump, sleep, pump, sleep, pump, sleep, pump, do chores, pump, go see babies, etc. Yet, this is the easy part!

I'm already sleep deprived, cranky, moody, weepy and having hallucinations.

The other night, Matt woke me up for my midnight pump (he was just coming to bed after having watched "Fell Metal Jacket" on Netflix for reasons I couldn't fathom.)

Anyway, Matt says, "Are you going to pump now?"

I say, "Yes." Then I do not move.

Matt finishes getting ready for bed and says again, "Are you going to pump?"

I say, "Yes, but someone has to take this baby off me first."

"What baby?" Matt asks.
….

I raise my head up to try to figure out where I am and who the hell I even am. I realize I'm at home and my babies are in the NICU being cared for by someone else. I'm not even that tired, really. I'm getting enough rest to realistically maintain sanity. And I'm still losing…my…mind. In my half asleep state, I thought one of the babies was sleeping on me and that our Russian NICU nurse Lana was in the other room.

So I'm starting to think maybe I am not the best person to be trusted with two small infants. Instead, the best way for these boys to grow up is to be raised by NICU nurses in a hermetically sealed environment where visitors must scrub down "Silkwood" style before entering and the temperature never fluctuates and the babies can be hooked up to heart monitors until they are 18 and Mommy can visit every day.

Together Again

Yesterday we had a magical moment in the NICU. Our fabulous nurse, Monica, helped put August and Finley together for the first time since birth.

As I sat in a rocking chair with a sleeping Finley, she moved August out of his incubator, stretched all the wires attached to him as far as they could go, and placed him in my arms next to Fin.

It was overwhelming and so cool for me, but the boys did not appear to share my enthusiasm. Fin remained completely asleep. August looked around a little – mostly in the opposite direction of his brother – and soon fell into a deep sleep, too.

I guess that's a good lesson of parenthood to learn early: the kids will be their own people, not who I expect them to be.

Once I was holding both boys I felt such joy, along with a slice of panic. (I think you can see the panic on my face here -- smiling a little too hard.) My mind raced. How will I handle these two little beings when I don't have a team of trained NICU nurses to help me? How would I even lift them both up and support their fragile little heads? What if there was an earthquake at that very moment and I had to throw myself on top of them to protect them – could I do it without crushing them? Yes, I take my anxiety to disaster-level scenarios, thankyouverymuch.

I asked Monica if she would come home with me and the kids once they are released from the hospital. She laughed. And said no. She said all NICU parents ask that same question. At least I'm not alone.

For now though, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself and to meet immediate goals -- keep pumping, produce more milk, sleep occasionally and remain semi-sane – which is all hard enough.

August and Finley Arrive

Well, I was finally right when I predicted that Mon. June 27 would be The Day. Dr. S finally looked at me and Matt and said, "We're done." He called my OB and before we knew it, I had a c-section scheduled for 8 p.m. that night.

For a couple of hours, Matt and I sat in a hospital room waiting, having my IV set up, filling out paperwork. Time moved slowly.

Then around 7:30 p.m., life suddenly sped up. My doctor showed up. My labor and delivery nurse, Tammie, introduced herself and quickly became my lifeline and BFF. The anesthesiologist talked me through the spinal block. I walked myself to the operating room -- crying a bit from fear and anticipation -- and then I was on my back being cut open.

For everyone who told me that a c-section was no big deal – you lied. Or at least it was a big deal to me. Maybe it's because I walked into that operating room already freaking out, but when the anesthesiologist said I could expect to feel "pressure" and "tugging," what she meant was pain.

The saving grace of the c-section was that it was over quickly. And that Matt was there with me. I held his with a vice-like death grip and told him that this was awful and I hated it.


Then when our babies were born and I heard them cry out, I cried with joy. And when they were briefly brought over for me to see, I forgot all about the "pressure" as the doctors sewed me up. My heart rate went down. My mind calmed. My complaining stopped. My life changed.

August (at left) was born at 8:32 p.m., weighing 4 lbs., 13 oz. Finley (above) was born at 8:33 p.m., weighing 3 lbs., 10 oz.

Both boys were rushed to the NICU. Only later did I learn that August was in serious distress at birth, having swallowed a ton of amniotic fluid. In the end, our "Little Floatie," Finley, was more stable than our Big Floatie.

But that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are both doing great, getting amazing 24-hour care in the NICU and making strides every day. And what really, really matters is that Matt and I love them beyond any measure that could be expressed in words.