When I had my daughter at 28+1 weeks she weighed just 720gram as a result of preeclampsia, absent end diastolic flow and severe IUGR.
My experience perhaps differs slightly as I am a previous NICU nurse of the ward my daughter ended up on. I spent the entire NICU journey in a war between being my daughter’s nurse versus being her mum; advocating for my daughter against friends and ex colleagues, whilst also trying to protect my daughter’s dad from the reality of what was happening.
I struggled with explaining to him gently what was going on with our daughter whilst trying not to scare him but knowing that some of the situations we were in were in fact very, very scary. Having a bit of knowledge isn’t always a good thing.
Our daughter was born at the height of Covid, so only two people were allowed on the unit for the duration of her stay. Me and her dad weren’t together which only added to the pressure and it was a very lonely experience.
Coming home from the NICU left me in a state of PTSD and severe health anxiety. I was terrified of everything like viruses and people I don’t know. I bought a rain cover for her car seat carrier so when we were in shops she was protected from those bugs. She was also on Oxygen. People must have thought I was crazy, and some said it to my face. I was petrified that they didn’t understand or comprehend the impact their cold would have on her.
It’s taken a very long time to settle into being a mum and not nurse. I’m so proud of my little girl and I look back and think maybe I should have been a bit embarrassed of how I acted – or in some cases probably over reacted. But likewise, a nurse I've worked with and who cared for my daughter as an ANP described our journey as one of the ‘worst’ she’s ever seen ‘in her entire career’. Did I over react or did I just take it seriously? Did it impact my mum/daughter relationship? Maybe at one time. But it’s stronger than ever now, no matter how bad it feels at the time, it will get better. Not perhaps as fast as everyone else wants it too, but it does.
I think about our NICU journey regularly and it’s a strange thing your memory, at the height of my mental health struggle with anxiety and PTSD I couldn’t remember things, or if I did it was very hazy. The longer it’s been since we were discharged and my mental health improves my recollection is almost gets better too.
I hope that any NICU mum reading this takes away one thing – it’s OK. It’s OK to feel all the feelings. Anger, anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, fear and utter happiness that your baby is here. It’s OK to feel those highest highs and lowest lows all at once and it’s normal too. How you chose to cope and how you manage your mental health is OK, no one journey is the same and everyone should be allowed to feel what they feel. But, it does get better.
