To the Mum Who Told Me It's OK to Celebrate Being in the NICU
180+ days.
That’s how long we were in the hospital. I remember on the first day, knowing we were in for a long haul and feeling like it would last forever and we would surely never make it. But we did.
I know not all NICUs are the same. But where we were, on your 100th day, they celebrate. There’s a poster by your baby’s bed, and people congratulate you on making it to 100 days. One hundred days and nights of your baby being in hospital and not at home with you.
I struggled so much with this.
I didn’t understand how it could possibly be something we celebrate. How is it a good thing that we have been here so long? Our family had been through hell, and our boy had tackled problem after problem, and all we wanted was to be those “normal” parents at home struggling with sleep.
I dreaded the 100th day.
I didn’t want to pretend to be happy — to smile when people congratulated us and thank them when really all I wanted was to scream at them, “How can you think this is OK?!”
And then, a mum said something to me that made me stop and think. That made me look at it from an entirely different perspective. That lightened my heart a little and allowed me to breathe through the day and smile genuinely.
She said, “It is sad, but it’s a huge medical milestone for our little boys, that other babies don’t get to experience.”
And she was right.
These babies don’t know they’re special. But they are.
They are tiny and fragile, yet the battle they wage to stay in this world is huge.
Some don’t get to stay; one of our boys didn’t get to his 15th day. But we celebrate him. His character and his strength, his memory, the love and dreams of him.
His brother got to day 100, 180, and now we are at something like day 248, at home and still battling sometimes, but we are together.
And I didn’t want to celebrate his 100th day?
Thank you to that mum, who helped me celebrate every day in hospital and continue to celebrate every day at home. Our little babies deserve congratulations.
Rebecca Clews is a 28-year-old pediatric nurse from Hamilton, New Zealand. She loves walking, cooking, baking and above all, eating! Food is a way to feel close to people and to feel happy; life is far too short and hard to say no to the cake! Charlie and Oliver are their first babies, and they are so lucky to be surrounded by a mass of people who love and support them in a million different ways. She started writing as a way to help the people around them understand a little of their journey and have continued as a form of therapy for herself, getting some of the thoughts out to hopefully lighten her soul a little, and as a way to say the things that some NICU parents find hard to put into words.
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