Sick Babies, or Tiny Possibilities?

In the midst of all this tooth drama, I forgot to mention that yesterday morning I got to observe in a NICU for five hours. I was supposed to do this observation while I was in school, but it didn’t get set up until now, and despite Cordy’s tooth, I couldn’t turn down the offer to observe. (Besides, the emergency clinic was open in the afternoon, so there was no conflict of my time, other than no time for me to eat lunch.)

Some people don’t like the NICU. (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, for those not initiated to hospital-speak.) I can understand that – the area is filled with crib after crib of small and sick babies, many facing life-threatening illnesses and prematurity. Not all of the babies who come into the NICU get the chance to see outside of the NICU again. Some babies are so small that you wonder how it is even possible for them to survive at that size.

I watched a team of doctors and nurses rush to save a baby who had stopped breathing. Her skin faded to white, the monitor flashed red alarms signaling she wasn’t getting the air she needed, and her heart rate began to slow to the 40’s. As I stood back and watched, I’ll admit I was scared for that baby I had never met. In my head, I repeated, “C’mon kid, hang in there. You can do it. Hang in there…” I heard nurses saying that she was usually a stable baby. No one expected her to take this sudden downhill plunge.

But at the same time, miracles can be found in the NICU every day. That group of skilled doctors and nurses worked together as a team – chaotic but with unified purpose – and within minutes they had that baby breathing again. Twenty minutes later, she was stable once again, back on track to heal and grow and someday go home with her parents to live out her destiny.

In my five hours of observation, that wasn’t the only baby who called a large group of medical professionals to her side. When I got a tour of the entire NICU area, the nurse I was shadowing showed me babies of all types: micro-preemies, those with genetic abnormalities, babies withdrawing from drug addiction. I even got to see the infant who was found by a mailman, wrapped in plastic on an abandoned porch last weekend.

Honestly, I loved my time there. Some may see the NICU as too sad, but I see it as full of hope and possibility. Look at how far we’ve come. Thirty years ago, many of the babies in this NICU would have no chance of survival. Twenty years. Ten years, even. Nearly thirty-four years ago, my mother gave birth to a baby at 32 weeks gestation. Today, she would have an excellent chance at survival. Back then, she was simply too young, too sick.

The research and medical advances made in neonatology have made it possible for younger, sicker infants to have better outcomes today. (With lots of help from charities like March of Dimes, of course.) As I rocked a baby going through drug withdrawal, I marveled at how we now have the ability to keep her comfortable and help ease her through the withdrawal. And I realized how much I would enjoy working in a NICU, helping little people get through a rough start in life to experience the possibilities life has to offer and being on the front lines in new medical breakthroughs to save even more babies.

Just think of how many medical advances we’ll see in the next ten, twenty, thirty years. It’s pretty amazing to consider.

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Comments

  1. YOU are a beautiful human being.

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  3. Amelia Sprout says

    With an attitude like that, I can’t imagine you not getting the chance to do it. Hopefully sooner rather than later. The nursery nurses when I had M, and had to leave her there after I was already discharged, were the only thing that kept me sane. I still tear up thinking about how hard it was, and how they made it bearable.

  4. Being a mom who watched her son grow in the NICU – boy was it hard, but I agree, they are full of hope, certainly sad at time! My son is a miracle, a NICU grad and I am thankful for that.

    Thanks for your post!

  5. That’s my dream job too, though I think you know that. The NICU saved Dylan’s life several times.

  6. I have a cousin who works in a large town in a NICU unit. When I had my 5 week premmie, he was big, 6.6 pounds and never went to the NICU. He came home when I did but ended up back in the hospital a week later as a failure to thrive baby.

    I sat for 3 days literally and watched this baby’s heart beat and everytime I dozed off or closed one to sleep while watching him with the other one, I would jump up ,as good as a woman a week after a c/section can jump and ran to his bed.

    People kept trying to get me to go home and sleep. He didn’t or couldn’t go into the nursery b/c he had been out in public and I refused to leave or even sleep really unless that cousin could come and sit and watch my baby breathe just to be sure.

    Anyway, she takes a picture of each of her babies in the NICU and has this monstrous book of those kids and the photos their parents send back later as thank you notes.

    It is one awesome book.

  7. The Goon Squad lived in the NICU for a week. Without those nurses and doctors Ian would have died before I ever got to take him home.

    The NICU is a scary place but it is full of miracles.

  8. We spent more than a month going to the NICU every day when my sister, a single mom, delivered her twins at 31 weeks. The babies were precious and definitely made me feel hopeful while reminding me how terribly fragile life is. All of the babies we met did not make it. We saw so much joy and so much sorrow. The thing I remember the most next to the BEAUTIFUL babies was the absolutely wonderful NICU nurses. They did everything for the babies and the families. My dream job if I can ever go back to school. Great post.

  9. And it’s people like you, Christina, that make places like NICU…a place I only had to walk by, thank God…something barible for families who must go through those rough rough minutes, hours or days. I pray you are placed in just such a place, because you NEED to be there. For the future babies sakes.