Infants are adorably bad at everything they do. My personal favorite is when they’re happily sucking on a pacifier (I reject the use of “binky” with every fiber of my being), then for no reason, grab at it and throw it across the bed. Meltdowns and confusion quickly follow.
Not all of their struggles were quite as adorable at first. If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of a Brady Episode before. By the way, “Brady” is short for Bradycardia. It wasn’t named after someone like I thought for a minute there. Anyway, they’re not supposed to be breathing yet; they’re supposed to be in the womb focusing on kicking their sisters. So, they’ll forget to sometimes. Next thing you know, their heart rate will drop, and alarms start sounding.
Turns out this is super normal, the baby almost always bounces back after a few seconds. If it keeps going, the nurse (or me holding my tiny baby pretending I’m not freaking out about this) will gently prod them. Then they remember that breathing is part of being alive now.
It’s also treated with a steady caffeine dose. Might as well start that habit early, right?
Overall the NICU experience is something you can’t prepare for until you’re living it. You have access to your children, but it’s limited and on someone else’s time. You wait a lot and feel very in the way. Not to say anything negative about the NICU nurses, they are kind and accommodating. They clearly care about what they do and want you to feel comfortable and involved. It’s just tough seeing your tiny newborns through plexiglass, all hooked up to wires. With little red marks all over them from some monitor or tube being moved to distribute irritation. I don’t think they care or even notice, and it’s for their own good. It’s just not where you think the “should we have kids?” conversation will end up taking you.
How are babies?
If you’re better at remembering numbers than me you’ll notice that their weights look a lot like the initial numbers. That’s because they’re back to their birth weights. I didn’t know babies dropped a whole bunch when they come out. Something to do with fluids. So, if you’re like me now you know too. Congrats. Ok, moving on.
Oh, you’ll see a bit of a sleeping theme. Man, do tiny babies sleep a lot. Ok, actually really moving on.
Mallory: 4lb 7oz, or a lot of grams. I’m American, sorry. Mallory is out of her isopod and is starting to learn how to eat without a tube. Well, I guess just drink for now. It’ll be a while before real eating happens.
Taylor: 4lbs 3oz, or fewer grams than Mallory. She was about to come out of her pod until a little weight dip re-set the timer. She lost just a couple of grams after a spit-up, but that was enough. They have to gain for five days along with maintaining temperature. Otherwise, she’s doing great.
Hannah: 3lbs 6oz, or some grams or whatever. The nurses always call her “feisty,” which I can attest to. While being tiny, she’s super alert and always pulling her feeding tube out. She’s taken up puking too.
If you’re wondering what an isopod is, it’s a plexiglass box they stay in. I’m pretty sure to maintain a stable temperature like they’d experience in the womb more than to protect them from germs. Those are managed by washing your hands and using so much hand sanitizer. It’s funny when you hear talk of them learning your smell. I’m pretty sure they think the world and everything in it smells like hand sanitizer.
They all came off breathing assistance super fast, except for Mallory, who was on room air from day one. None of them have IVs anymore. They’re keeping fluids up by eating. Losing IVs was great because that means they get to wear some of those onesies Rachel’s been stockpiling. The oxygen monitors are gone too since that’s been consistently fine. Overall, we’re pretty lucky that they’re so healthy. Which, of course, leads us to the big question…
When do babies come home?
It depends. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered about NICU life, it’s that everything happens in approximations. Holding your baby for a feeding might last 45 minutes, or it could be two hours. She’ll come off her IV tomorrow, or it could be a few days. We’ll start bottle feeding this weekend, or it could be a week. Everything depends on how they’re doing, how they tolerate something, or how quickly they figure something out. There isn’t any set timing on anything. Coming home boils down to some key milestones. There are five of them.
- Breathe room air without assistance. Check for all.
- Consistently gain weight. Check again for all.
- Maintain temperature on their own. Mallory and Taylor are very close. Hannah is still doing her best.
- Eat without a tube for 48 hours. No one is quite there. All of them have taken their first steps, success has been scattered.
- No Brady Episodes for five days. Everyone is a shit show on that one. It takes a bit for those to go away. I have been told they’ll be taken off caffeine soon. Not actively treating it sounds like a good sign, right?
The very best possible outcome at this moment is one baby coming home in 5 days. Only if that baby nails eating, temperature, and never forgets to breathe. Of course, that’s not likely. They’re just over 33 weeks now, still very premature. For now, we continue to wait.
How are we?
We’re fine. Rachel is through the worst of healing. It’ll be a while before she can take up competitive bodybuilding, though. I’m back to work until at least one baby comes home. Rachel is basically on their schedule now, thanks to pumping. My new hobby is washing pumping parts.
Having them earlier than expected got us moving on prep at least. If we needed to bring a baby home right this moment, we have somewhere to put them, multiple places to change them, and loads of supplies. We even did our “Homeward Bound” class, where I got to breathe into a mannequin through a mask. That’s a silver lining, right?
Extra stuff, observations, and thoughts I couldn’t be bothered to weave into the narrative.
Baby poops are real weird. While I knew about the black tar looking stuff, I was not ready for milk poops. If you actually want to know because you haven’t seen it live, ask me, and buckle up. I have been crapped on already too.
They’re super dramatic about waking up. Lots of big yawns.
They get hiccups all the time. Because of their tiny voices, they sound like little squeaks.
Pulling their feeding tubes out is their favorite pass time apparently.
You don’t know dry hands until you wash and use hand sanitizer every ten seconds.
They’re pretty adorable and precious, we can’t wait to bring them home.