The Hospital

My husband told me a while ago what it was like to leave the hospital the night the boys were born. What was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives, had him stricken with fear. Not only were his boys premature, jaundiced and on feeding tubes. Chandler was on oxygen and I was in the ICU. Not the start we were hoping for with our new family. It breaks my heart to think of how alone he must have felt.

Sometime on the second day I think (again my memories are quite foggy here) a nurse put me in a wheelchair and took me to see my boys. And someone had the great idea to hand me Tyler. I held him for a brief moment before my world started spinning. No one noticed though. I was scared to death that I was going to pass out while holding him. Luckily, Mike walked in at that moment and I practically threw the baby at him. He said "I haven't washed my hands yet." But that was the lesser of two evils. Apparently I spent the next hour drooling on myself in a stupor while Mike, his dad and his step mom held and even fed the babies. I still feel guilty that I only held one of my babies that first visit.

Someone wheeled me down to the NICU as often as they could. But, I was very sick and the nurses had more than just me to worry about. So, I didn't really get to start bonding with my babies until I was upgraded to the post-partum room. And after a much needed shower, I spent as little time in my room as possible. I was hungry for time with my babies. And I wanted them to know that I was there for them.

Feeding the boys wasn't what I had dreamed of either. I wasn't allowed to nurse yet for several reasons, so they had to be bottle fed. And not just any bottle feeding. They had to eat their rations within a specified time, or they would be using more calories than they were getting. So, every bottle ended with a nurse dumping the rest down their feeding tube. I couldn't really blame them for taking the easy way out though. After all, we had all been fed through a tube for months now.

Chandler and Tyler spent 9 days in the NICU. I was released from the hospital after 6 days. Which means, like too many other mother's out there, I left the hospital without my babies. I can't explain how that feels. Mike and I spent practically every waking minute in the family room holding Chandler and Tyler. And that, my friends, was our very first parental error. We had those babies in our arms every possible minute. We had no idea what kind of habits we were forming. We just wanted them to know how loved they were.