A Christmas NICU Story
By: Charles Corbett
Tags: Emotions, Nicu, Storytelling, Coping, Newborn

“He needs to come with me to the NICU for a little bit, Dad you want to come while Mom finishes up with the doctor?” The overnight NICU Nurse Practitioner said to me in the delivery room. “It could be a few minutes or it could be a few hours.”

It was a cherry on top of a half hour of chaos. He was stubborn: not wanting to come out at all, coming out right side up, coming out slowly and traumatically. And then once he was out, he was breathing in tiny little gasping grunts.

“I need you to fill out some consent forms for his admission to the NICU” You can’t quite believe what is happening.

Grunts, that’s literally what the condition is called, and in the scale of delivery complications it’s (thankfully) on the lower severity end of things that land you in the NICU. The lungs are in a state of deflation, from either holes or fluids, and the newborn is having to use a dramatic amount of force to just inflate them and take a single breath, before returning to fully deflated. Imagine blowing a balloon up from empty with every single breath.

It even sounds cute in the moment when you don’t know what it is, although I should have known better since moments after he started grunting 3 NICU nurses grabbed him and surrounded him on the warming table.

The fix is essentially a CPAP. Breathe for the newborn and keep the lungs inflated and hope their autonomous breathing normalizes and the condition goes away. He has a tiny hole in his lungs that will heal normally, but he also has some other hurdles to get over: namely eating.

Entering the NICU at 4AM in tow with your son is a surreal but affirming experience. Everyone stops what they are doing to watch you enter, some glance into the warmer and mutter “awws” and ask his name.

Everyone speaks very slowly to you and it slowly dawns on you that your eyes are the size of quarters and you are being treated very gently. You comply with everything, sign the forms, manage to ask a few questions. You steal a last glance at your son before asking to be taken back to your wife to explain what little you’ve learned.

—

Hours later he is breathing on his own, at least. He isn’t eating yet, but you can hold him finally (which angers a few beeping machines). The NICU is oddly quiet, given how many babies are there. Some make noise, tiny little cries.

You are somewhat startled by how few parents are in the NICU, but you’ve heard yourself how they urge you to go take care of yourself. They are a Level 3 NICU, and exceptionally competent. Your kid is in amazing hands, it will be fine just go eat and rest. They won’t stop you from hovering though, in fact visitation hours are just about 24/7 with a few gaps for shift changeovers. Just follow the surgical cleaning procedures and you are welcome to your child just about any time.

You’ve noticed some hospital staff treat you differently because of your pink wristband. Not in a special privileges way, but with tone of voice and body language. You don’t know if this makes you feel better or worse yet.

It is now Christmas and your wife is about to be discharged. You will be going home to your toddler to spend Christmas day smiling and playing while your son remains in a high tech incubator with IVs.

You’ll process that later Christmas night once the toddler is asleep and you can relax in a place that isn’t as sterile. You can feel it beneath the surface, the hurt and anger — frustration.

“He’s ok, he’s just in the NICU” is something you’ve grown used to saying already — and it’s a nonsensical sentence.

But, it is only a few more days — and this adventure in NICU is almost over. Then life will proceed as if it had been an uneventful birth and your stay will fade — becoming a story you are told when you ask about the day.