From NICU to Home

Bye Bye NICU! 

Having Evangeline home can be described as two polar opposites. On one end, we as parents are elated with joy and happiness! We waited so long for the NICU Journey to end and we were just so relieved we didn’t have to go back to the hospital! It was such a long process to have to find a parking spot, show our visitor/parent pass downstairs, go upstairs, sign in, scrub up to our elbows for at least a minute, then put everything we are carrying into a pillow case. Every.Single.Day. When you’re in the NICU, you don’t have much privacy either. So once we took Evangeline home, it was such a shock to have peace and quiet. To go to bed and to see her there next to us was such a surreal and pleasant adjustment. And for the first time ever, we heard her snore and grunt and sigh (it’s practically impossible to hear any of the preemies do this in the NICU bc there’s always something going on, whether it be beeping alarms, nurses chatting, or doctors doing their rounds…) She is adjusting quite well to her new home environment.  

On the other end of the spectrum, is the opposite of joy and happiness: fear, anxiety, and stress! The nurses warned us that we would be feeling these new emotions and that it’s common for NICU parents. I understood and said it would be no big deal, since I was there at the NICU every day. Boy, was I wrong. The reason NICU parents worry is because… once you’re at home, there is no one to help you when your baby stops breathing (which Evangeline has done a total of 4 times this last week!) There is no one to help you when your baby hasn’t gone poo in 5 days (which, again, Evangeline has struggled with!) To go from being in a NICU with at least 20 nurses all around you and 2 doctors on call, to being at home with a baby who still has wires and tubes and an oxygen tank and a monitor and many, many medications can be very overwhelming. It wasn’t even a full day of being with her that we had to go to her first doctor’s appointment. It took almost 15 minutes to pack her and all of her equipment into our car and make sure we gave all the medicine she needed. When we got into the waiting room with a bunch of children, I started freaking out. I immediately went up to the receptionist: “Excuse me, my baby is a preemie, so she’s more susceptible to sickness. Can we please be put in an isolated room?” And she reassured me that all the sick kids were in a different waiting room. I sat down and saw every other parent staring at Evangeline because of the monitor and oxygen tank we were carrying. One child specifically kept running around and interacting with all of the parents. I kept on eyeing that active child and our large oxygen tank. Finally I said, “Hey sweetie, can I tell you something?” Her eyes got big and she was happy to have my attention. “Well, see this?” (I pointed to the oxygen tank) “Well, my baby needs help breathing and this has something called oxygen. You need to be careful when you run around because if you accidentally knock this down, it might explode and fly around and could possibly hurt or kill someone! It’s like a bomb because of the gas inside!” I smiled gently at the child and immediately her mom says “Baby, GET OVER HERE. NOW.” All the parents’ eyes zoomed in on the tank. The child stopped playing around us.

Later, when I got home, I started crying because I felt like an inadequate parent…I was overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, and terrified that I might do something wrong that could jeopardize Evangeline’s health and livelihood. After all, she still needed help breathing which is why she had an oxygen tank. She still needed healing inside of her body and that’s why she had 7 medications. And because her breathing can stop and her heart could beat too quickly, we had to always have her attached to an apnea monitor.

After a little over a week of adjusting to her special needs (and many power naps inbetween!) God has truly helped me. We’ve finally got the hang of it (sorta)…And truly, God has listened to our prayers and not only healed Evangeline from so many of her medical issues in the NICU, but He is still  listening to our prayers as she heals at home (and as we become her main caretakers!) My fear and anxiety has lessened because of the truth that God is sovereign and in control! And I do find comfort since in my weakness, God’s power is made perfect. I have NEVER been so humbled! I really can’t do this on my own. I need God’s help and strength. As Evangeline is dependent on me, I am dependent on my heavenly Father for sustenance and help!

There are no words to express how much I love this child (it doesn’t stop me from trying!) All I can say is that before her, I thought that I had a certain capacity to love. I knew what it was like to love my family and my friends. But whatever capacity I thought I had, has been surpassed. It’s like every single day, when my heart wants to burst because it’s overflowing with love for Evangeline, I’m almost confident there is no stronger love than this! And then the next day, I am surprised find myself loving her even more than that! When I wake up and see her there next to our bed, when I see her smile, when I see her watching me and memorizing my face, when I see Kevin feeding her, and her gazing up at her daddy...Sometimes I can’t believe this is real! How can she be OUR baby? How did we get so blessed to have such a precious child as our daughter? This love is so new, so different and so beautiful! I am so blessed by God to even have the opportunity to bear and raise a child, to feel this type of maternal intimacy…I couldn’t be more thankful!  

So that, in a nutshell, is how our first week went after Evangeline living in the NICU for the first 88 days of her life.

Evangeline is home, and that’s right where she belongs. 

Evangeline loves her bassinet and Graco Pack 'n Play! 

This is Evangeline on her diaper changing table...she's not very fond it. She usually gets annoyed when we change her diaper.

Our little Nemo loves her baths! And check out these cute hooded towels! We never had these growing up!

Praise the Lord for a great first week at home!