Leaving

For those who have spent any length of time in the hospital, it will sound like an understatement to say that it is no fun. I certainly do not fondly remember the month I spent in a bed not my own. Subject to frequent monitoring and not allowed to go about my normal daily routine, I felt like the unwilling subject of a science experiment. On the day of my release, I could not leave my room fast enough. Yet, as we drove away from the hospital to spend our first night back home, we were leaving the newest member of our family behind. I suspect many NICU parents will describe their experience with leaving in the same bittersweet way.

What parents of healthy full-term babies may not understand is that leaving a baby at the hospital does not mean leaving parenting responsibilities behind. While new mothers are waking up two or three times a night to nurse their newborns, the mother of a preemie is getting up as frequently to pump milk to take to the hospital the next day. Similarly, while new parents look in on their babies, sometimes obsessively so, to make sure all is well, parents of preemies frequently call the NICU to do the same. For the mother or father of a newborn at home, the baby's cries demand a response and may even be cause for alarm. For the parent of a preemie, a call from the hospital does the same, only more so.

New parents must also strive to balance it all: work, home, and everything in between. This process becomes even more complicated if there is an older sibling involved because suddenly mom and dad are the parents of two children, each with equally demanding needs. When a baby remains in the hospital, such balance is much harder to achieve. During Buzzy's NICU stay, her father would get up and go to work while I stayed at home with my older child, whom I would drop off at preschool after lunch. Then, I would go up to the hospital to see Buzzy until it was time to pick up her sister from school. Upon dad's arrival home from work, he would take a quick shower and head to the hospital, where he would stay for several hours. When he would return, the two of us at home would already be in bed. The next day, we would do it all over again.

I have heard from other parents of preemies that people have told them they were lucky to have someone else caring for their baby or that they were not really parents until the baby came home. Of course, I find such remarks ignorant and hurtful, but I cannot expect those who have not been there to understand. This does not mean, however, that I can excuse such careless comments. Leaving a baby behind is one of the hardest things a parent does, and the people who do not know what this is like are the lucky ones. Further, to those who may think having a baby away from home means the burden of parenting is somehow easier, I, and any parent who has been through a similar experience, beg to differ.