For all the emotional trials of having twin preemie newborns in the N.I.C.U. (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), there is a silver lining for the parents. Someone else is taking care of your children most of the time. Rotating shifts of nurses are feeding, changing, bathing, and playing with your babies while you are not there. Now don't get me wrong. We were not sitting at home living it up. I would come to see the babies before work, and after work, and sometimes again in the late evening. I was given tips from the nurses on how best to feed the babies, how to swaddle them, and I took on a series of minor tasks to help the nurses in their daily routines.
In the 9 weeks that the children were in the N.I.C.U., I was given the chance to ease into full-time, hands-on parenting, and had a series of advisors to help me through the process ... nurses, doctors, social workers, other N.I.C.U. parents
No one ever wants their baby to have to spend time in the N.I.C.U. after they are born. But, in the future, when you look back on that time, you realize that there were so many things that the N.I.C.U. experience provided you - information, support, training - and you realize how blessed you were to have had access to such an amazing facility.
No comments:
Post a Comment