108 Days II Welcome to Holland!

This narrative gave me an interesting kind of comfort when I read it 2 weeks in to our stay here in the NICU. It is so true, and fully captures what this bizarre experience does to you, and for you. It will break you down to your most raw state. And at the same time will reinvigorate your faith in humanity, in people, in love and empathy. It’s a sad, overwhelmingly beautiful thing. These words capture it perfectly.

Credit: Anonymous (but borrowed from https://themightyjackthomas.com/, which BTW has given me so much strength in this journey. and I fucking hate the word 'journey' now, but whatevs, moving right along....)

WELCOME TO HOLLAND!

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

Welcome to Holland!! We are happy to have you here. It’s actually an incredible place.

*******

And what an incredible place this is. It’s a bizarre thing - I would not wish an extended stay in the NICU on my worst enemy, but you know what? Everything is OK here. These people, from the West Pavilion volunteer greeter, to the L&D/Ortho/NICU front desk staff, and the entire NICU family here in the unit…without this experience I never would have known these beautiful souls, and this really unbelievably magical place. This is a corner of the world that I never knew existed but GOSH am I happy I’ve been able to see it and feel it first hand.

These nurses, these women, these angels, have laughed with me, cried with me, hugged me when I needed it, left me alone when silence is what I craved, and given me hope when there was truly such little hope to be given. For this place, I am forever grateful. There really are no words.

Ruby, our NICU mom, savior, our girl, giving Silas his first full bottle LIKE A BOSS.
This woman is unbelievable. 

Silas Update II 97 Days Old II Happy Due Date

40 Weeks Gestation (HAPPY DUE DATE BUDDY!)
14 Weeks Old.
6 lbs 6 oz.
2900 grams.

*Before reading this, I declare a trigger warning for anyone suffering with any death or hospital-related PTSD. Please discontinue reading this post if you are at risk.

As I sit here on your due date, watching you sleep, I am in absolute awe of you, this tiny beautiful miracle. You have been through so much. 97 days of steps forward, and steps back, so much joy and so many panicked tears, but it’s all brought us here to the day you’ve turned into a full term babe. You are 6 beautiful lbs of sweet, cuddly baby scents. You take my breathe away every day and no matter what mood I’m in, even on the hardest of days, I just can’t stay away. A mothers instinct is a truly unbelievable thing - it drives me to do everything I can for you. It wakes me up every 3 hrs in the middle of the night to pump, it has me drinking Mothers Milk tea, eating Mother Honey, and staying as healthy as possible so that my body can provide for you. I cry every day. Usually it’s tears of joy and disbelief that I’ve been so lucky to watch you grow and thrive. Sometimes, like yesterday, it is because my heart aches for all of the families I pass in the hall here in the NICU. To see other mothers whose babies have been freshly admitted, I can see it in their face, in their eyes. They are tattered, red-faced, their eyes glazed over and staring at the ground in despair. Many had no idea they would end up here, and have no clue how long they’ll be here, or if their sweet child will make it out alive. I know that feeling all too well and it is by far the worst most gut-wrenching heartbreak they’ll ever feel. Yesterday a baby a few rooms down coded, and shortly after, he passed away. I could hear his mother wailing, his father comforting this poor distraught mother. My therapist says I have PTSD and let me tell you what, that episode just completely broke me. I sat in our hospital room, listening powerless to this poor family, staring at you, feeling so incredibly guilty that we are healthy and well, but also equally grateful that you made it. We made it. That was almost us when you coded at 5 days old. You were not living for 20 whole minutes. But the doctors were able to save you, we won't leave unscathed and have lots of therapy in our future, but you survived. Thank God. The reality of the contrast of life and death becomes so stark and real in the NICU. Most days are mundane with tiny improvements, all equally miraculous. Then there’s a day like yesterday when dark, scary occurrences remind me to count our blessings, and send love to everyone - in the hallways, in the store, at the bank. Show empathy. Make eye contact. Give smiles to everyone. Because you don’t know what they’re going through, maybe their dog just passed away, maybe they just had a fight with their significant other, and maybe they have a baby in the NICU who is fighting for his life, but she’s just there at Fred Meyer to buy a jug of milk because her family needs to keep on keeping on. I’ve learned so much about life through this experience, and the one biggest thing that I get to take away from this is an immense amount of empathy, for humans, for moms, for families, for every being.

On a much brighter and lighter note, you are doing so great buddy. You graduated off your high-flow cannula respiratory support 4 days ago and rather than transition from high-flow to low-flow, we trailed you off respiratory support completely (it was my call, I’m a doctor now incase you didn’t get that memo) and you are doing great with no support! Your blood oxygen level has been consistently above 92, and actually closer to 100s. You still have a small dip in HR or Blood Oxygen here and there, but nothing too alarming. At this point the name of the game is to get you eating consistently. You are on a combination of breastfeeding when I’m around (typically 2 - 3 feeds a day), bottle feeding when I’m not around, and they’ll do a gavage (hanging) feeding to finish of what’s needed. You’re eating roughly 50 mls each feeding, 8 times a day every 3 hours. I’m producing a little under that but that’s OK. Our last round to bust you out of here will be for you to take all feedings in a bottle. That’s the LAST STEP!! Crazy to think about. No guarantees on how long it’ll take but you’re slowly taking more out of the bottle, so we feel good about bringing you home in the next month or so. But we'll see, it's still just one day at a time. So relax dude, you just keep growing and being the sweetest little thing on the planet. 

97 days ago vs. Today. Such growth!

Chunkmaster Flex in the building

Cannula free! Just a feeding tube!

Power to the swaddle

All of the chins showing up

So many snuggle selfies. <3 

Drake giving us life on our quote board.