They say that as a parent, you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child. I didn’t imagine that the saying included infancy, but apparently it does. When he has a good day, I am just elated and I can see little cartoon birds cavorting around my shoulders. When he has a setback, I’m looking for the razors.
Sunday we went down to see him in the morning, which we almost never do. I think I’ve seen the day shift twice so far in his month of life. We prefer going at night because we get more time with him. During the day there are labs and xrays and blah blah blah poking poking poking, and we basically end up in the nurses way or having to leave him alone anyway because whenever he gets fussed with, he needs time to calm down afterwards. At night the nurses are much more mellow, they’re happy to see us and help us spend time with him, and it works better for us to go down together when Bear gets off work. We’re already spending hundreds of dollars on gas as we drive two hours every day, making two trips would make us lose our house.
Anyway, Sunday Bear’s parents drove down from Orange County to visit our teeny little super guy, so we went at around 10am so the whole family could get together for lunch. When we arrived, the nurse was just finishing up some work with him. He was a little grumpy like he always is when they can’t just leave him alone, and all of a sudden he started crashing. His oxygen saturation plummeted and alarms started beeping all over the place. Nurses came sprinting from all directions, someone yelled for the doctor, the respiratory therapist charged her way over, and Sally and I had to dive to get out of the way.
I just sat there watching my tiny little man surrounded by all these frantically moving bodies, and once again I was completely superfluous. Once again I felt torn in half: grateful beyond words for the fantastic care he’s receiving, and so jealous I could shoot lazers out of my eyes that I can’t be the one to give him that care.
It ended up just being a mild scare. He had woken up from a nap and coughed, and ended up clogging his ventilator tube with mucus. The nurses were so sweet and all patted me and made sure I understood that “he just had a booger stuck in the pipe.” They brought me tissues and told me how much they all loved him. They gave me hugs and empathized and told me how good it was to cry and get my frustration out, how they understood how hard it was to just stand back.
I love those nurses. But I would also shiv any one of them in the kidney if I thought I could just scoop my boy up and run all the way home.
After that visit, I was morbidly depressed for two days. I tried to get out of going to lunch in favor of taking to my bed, but Bear was hoping that some company would take my mind off things. So I went to lunch with the family and quietly cried through the whole thing. And then I went home and took to my bed.
When he has a day like that, it’s so easy to give in to the sadness. It’s so easy to tell myself, “Well, I can’t do anything for him anyway, why should I even go to the trouble of going down there. The nurses will take care of him.” When he is in crisis, no amount of my voice or touch is going to help him. Luckily, I’ve read the preemie books and I know that this reaction is ridiculously normal. The books have told me that there’s nothing wrong with me for thinking this, I just have to push through until he has a good day.
Yesterday we made our usual nighttime visit. On the way down we were chanting, “Come on, good nurse. COME ON, good nurse.” We even debated between all our favorites as to who we really wanted to see that night and settled on the sweetest little thing that reminds us of our friend Jess. She looks so young we keep wondering if she’s even old enough to be a nurse (sound familiar Jess?), but she’s so sweet and enthusiastic and laughs at all our dumb jokes and lets me do everything I can for little Rookie. Sure enough, who’s at Atticus’ bedside? Our favorite little Kathleen.
We had a great visit with him. He’s still on the blooming ventilator, but I got to take his temperature and change his diaper and dress him in his little vest. I got to kiss on him and sing to him and he held my finger in his tiny fist. And best of all, we found out he had a growth spurt and he’s now 1345 grams, and we’re holding our breath until he gets to 1500 when they’ll try taking him off the ventilator again. That is, if he doesn’t yank it out again in the meantime. Did I mention he yanked his tube out for the second time? This little boy of mine is such a stubborn little pill. I have no idea where he got *that* from.
Sure enough, today the sky is clear and all is right with the world. Today the roller coaster is climbing and I am happy because my baby is growing. And eventually he’ll be OK.
Last night I also got to talk to a nurse who spearheads their donations, and I just couldn’t be more thrilled. Finally, I’ve found something I can do. I can’t clear his airways or put in an IV, but by gravy I can sew like the wind. And I can unleash the forces of the internet to help me. Stay tuned, and over the next couple of weeks or so I’ll be posting my new NICU donation drive. Go through your fabric stashes and pull out all baby related fabrics, because I have patterns and more patterns needing volunteers.