Remembering the NICU, 11 years later...

Being told that our baby might look grey or even blue when he's born was not the birth story we had anticipated. Learning he might have serious medical conditions as a result was even worse.

Eleven years ago I had already been in an unfamiliar hospital for two weeks in a city far from home. At just 28 weeks pregnant, Pre-eclampsia was cause for my Bermuda obstetrician to send me off to a hospital in Boston that was better equipped to handle my imminent premature delivery.

Those two weeks were filled with card games and reading and TV, bruised arms due to blood draws every six hours, daily ultrasounds and non-stress tests, and visits from NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) nurses who tried to prepare me for my premature baby's arrival by giving me worst-case scenarios: Your baby might be grey or blue when he's born. He might not cry. You may not get to see him before he's handed off to a NICU doctor. He might have brain bleeds or problems with underdeveloped organs. He might need to be resuscitated.

It was pretty much the opposite of how I'd thought the birth of my first baby would go.

This was the farthest along I got in my pregnancy. 

Asher was born on September 12, almost 10 weeks early. He weighed 2 lbs and was 14 inches long. That's only a little bit longer than a ruler. He didn't even really look like a baby. Picture a tiny skeleton with skin, and that was my baby. He was covered with thick blonde hairs all over his body, which is something called lanugo. Most babies shed this hair before birth, but because Asher came so early, he was still covered in it. His skin was slightly translucent with visible veins. His limbs were only as thick as my fingers. He did not yet have the sucking reflex or enough fat to maintain his own body temperature. He received my milk via a feeding tube in his nose. His feedings were measured in milliliters.

The NICU was both the scariest and most inspiring place I have ever been. There are rows upon rows of glass boxes - incubators - with the tiniest humans you've ever seen inside. There are other babies who are not premature but are still very sick. Scary, loud machines hover around each child, wires connecting machine to baby. Alarms constantly go off when a baby's oxygen level decreases too much. You see, babies as premature as Asher forget to breathe sometimes. Can you imagine? They just forget! Each time Asher's oxygen level was too low, an alarm would sound. At first it was terrifying. The nurses taught us to gently touch Asher or rub his back to "remind" him to take a breath, which, thankfully, he always did. After a while, the alarms were normal to us. To be honest, it was quite scary eventually bringing Asher home from the hospital without those alarms. How would we ever know if he stopped breathing without the assurance of a breathing monitor?

The first time I was able to see Asher, he was more than a day old. It was shocking to see him hooked up to so many machines. I couldn't even see what his face looked like behind the CPAP.

Such a tiny, fragile thing

Parents have to scrub down before even going into the NICU. There was a room between the lobby and the NICU akin to a detoxification room of sorts. There, you'd scrub and scrub until you are sure you've killed any possible germ. Then you enter the NICU. In our hospital, there were three levels of the NICU that housed babies according to how sick they were. Our baby was in the second level.

And there are rules, so many rules. Wash your hands constantly. Use the hand sanitizer dispensers. Don't look at the other babies. Don't talk to the other parents. Don't ask about the other babies. I realize it's all for privacy reasons, but it felt so terrible walking past incubators and ignoring the tiny inhabitants. I avoided eye contact with other parents. I tried to divert my attention elsewhere when doctors and nurses spoke in hushed voices nearby.

Even the preemie-sized clothes were much too big for our boy. Notice, for scale, how large that pacifier appears to be. It was also preemie-sized.

And yet, the NICU is also an inspiring, wonderful place! To think of all the health care professionals who have dedicated their life's work to healing and caring for the tiniest, sickest of babies still brings a lump to my throat. It was a scary place, but it was also hopeful. It gave me a renewed faith in humanity. Here we were in one of the best hospitals in the United States, and these particular doctors and nurses were caring for babies that would otherwise not be able to survive. Why? Because these sick, tiny babies are valuable. They are human beings. They are worth as much as an adult. They are children of God.

Today, Asher turns 11 years old. He's quickly catching up to me in height and weight. He's smart, musical, kind, and sensitive. He is everything I had hoped for when I stared through the glass box at his skeleton of a body, tiny chest heaving rapidly, too tiny to wear diapers or preemie-sized clothes. I specifically remember looking at him and wondering what he would be like as an 11-year old boy. It seemed ridiculously far away at the time, when he was 9 weeks old and still not well enough to come home from the hospital. But now we are here, in your preteen years, and it's easy to forget all you went through when I see you with your friends or hear you play piano or listen to you talk about your interests. Still, when you sleep, I catch glimpses of that 2 lb baby who used to be so fragile and small, and I swell with emotion of just how blessed we are to have you today. So many other babies never make it out of the NICU, and it seems unfair that others suffer such heartbreak while we were spared. Though I am so grateful, I'll never understand it.

Here is Asher, finally at home, at around 10 weeks old. He still looked very much like a newborn.

Asher spent more than two months in the NICU before he was healthy enough to come home. It was heartbreaking and terrifying, emotional and amazing. And while I could question why my body cannot seem to get through a pregnancy without Pre-eclampsia, or be angry at my inability to keep a baby full-term, instead I realized that I've gotten an immense blessing from the experience: I've been able to have Asher in my life 10 weeks longer than I would have otherwise. And for that extra time with him, I'll always be thankful.

Thank you, Lord, for this immeasurable gift.


"And Leah said, 'Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed!' and she called his name Asher." -Genesis 30:13