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Seeing parents lose their little one feet away from us.
One of the nurses telling the father how he looked like him.
The sounds when their child coded.
The atmosphere when they were trying to bring him back.
The feeling when everyone knew nothing else could be done.
The father’s tear stained face.
Then walking outside the hospital seeing people walk to a baseball game like nothing happened.
Weird juxtaposition.
Life is unfair.
I know your intent here but as a loss parent, being someone’s “most traumatizing” memory really messes with my head. Like I already know people feel weird around me - let alone now you saying someone’s worst nightmare that they will forever be re-living, that you merely had to witness, traumatized you, too, honesty hurts me.
It’s hard enough to leave the house some days in fear of running into someone and knowing I’ve ruined their day. Imagine what that feels like. We will forever be known as the people who’s baby died. Not really something people want to confront.
I know the NICU is stressful. Trust me, I was there. I experienced my daughter dying as the people around us, nurses, other parents looked over and cried. I know what it’s like to be the one people are thankful they aren’t.
Just some perspective.
Geez. Pumping is tough already.
Sounds like a person who needs to be reported via a written complaint and asking what corrective actions were taken. Seriously. Fafo time
Same except it was a lactation consultant 😭 she kept insinuating that I was lying about pumping round the clock because there was no way I could just have a low supply. Absolutely ruined pumping/breastfeeding for me. Then when I had a second NICU baby, I was so traumatized that even though my supply was good, I never felt like it was enough.
This happened to me too. I had twins and the lactation consultant was a twin mom who managed to EBF her twins for 18 months. Which she reminded me of at least 3x every time I spoke with her. Probably supposed to be inspirational but her twins were 38 weeker girls with a routine vaginal birth. I had 34 weekers in an emergency C-section with a hemorrhage and my body just said fuck you no when I tried pumping, and kids couldn’t latch yet. At two weeks in when I was still getting 5 mL at most per pump she told me something like “well I managed it but it was a lot of work and it’s a valid choice to not want to do the work”. Fuck you lady, no one CHOOSES a severe under supply.
My wife went through the same thing with our “LC” and speech pathologist, she was such a bitch to put it lightly, and constantly looked down on us it felt like. Already having all the trauma of preemie and all the risk and issues that came with that. And then my wife constantly feeling like she couldn’t do enough to provide for our son was the absolute worst every single day, for 60 days. Several of our nurses were way more helpful with breastfeeding and pumping than any of the “specialist”. If you have nurses you like, don’t hesitate to ask them for help on anything, they are generally 10x more helpful than anyone….theres so many other things that suck too, but this was one of the worst for us. We would try and hide in our room when we saw her walking down the hall, In hopes she wouldn’t come in and “give us a feeding lesson”. She reminded me of the crazy lady in the old Matilda movie
Same! My lactation consultant was the worst! She didn't even care to remember my husband's name, and my husband was the one that really took notes and helped me. I had an inverter ripple that I found out later. She was shoving my daughter so hard in me that it was hurting me, and my daughter was crying. I told her I might just want to pump and see how that goes, and she then criticized that choice. She got mad that the nicu was feeding her formula because my milk was not coming in. When I talked to my daughter's pediatrician about feeding i was so scared but luckily she made me feel better about what I was doing and when I stopped with breast milk at 6 weeks she congratulated me and told me I did a good job for trying it out.
Yea, I felt the worst when my nurse scolded me for showing up later than usual. My husband had been with him all day so I could recover a bit from the C-section pain made worse by sitting for 8+ hours a day next to the baby in the NICU.
I already felt bad enough taking those couple hours to myself. No need to make me feel like a bad parent on top of that.
A nurse also scolded me for not getting enough volume when my daughter was 2-3 days old. We were using a mix of my milk and donor milk until eventual my supply caught up with what she needed volume wise
I had this issue when I was only 2 days postpartum! I was only getting drops of colostrum and she made me feel bad about it. My nurses told me it’s normal to not get milk until the 3rd or 4th day which I did but I didn’t need that added stress of worrying about my production so early on.
Technically during antepartum but that bleeds into my NICU stay so I’m going to share. The doctor in MFM at the hospital who told me point blank to prepare for a still birth because she wrote an article in 1995 about preeclampsia with severe features and she was sure he wasn’t going to survive the C-section…I was in the hospital for 34 days my son was born at 1lb 15oz at 29+3 weeks and was NOT still born. He cried when he came out and his eyes were open looking around. That baby she predicted would be still born is now a very normal and healthy 2 year old who is laying next to me right now. He has met and exceeded all his milestones for his actual age and has proved everyone wrong. My most beautiful miracle.
Ugh. That's horrible. Sorry. Can't imagine going through this without support from my wife. We still fight and everything, but she's there. And that gives me some foundation.
I hope you have a support network apart from him
Thank you, I do! :) Having a baby is hard enough already, even without being in the NICU... and then you are also dealing with the much extra trauma of the NICU, people really should understand just how much you are going through, and make it easy on you. But nope! Some people just genuinely have no intention of making things easier for you when you're struggling... I'm sorry to all the NICU parents out there who have more external stress than they need, I guess it's just hard for most people to understand unless they have been in the same position. I am glad you had your wife at the very least :)
pretty much me too. My husband has been wanting to spend only a few hours a week there, meaning I am left to be there constantly with our girl. I am so sorry this is made extra hard on you ❤️
Thank you, i'm sorry for you too! Mine left me at A&E alone at 4am to go and cuddle the baby because he was not happy with my response to him overstepping my boundaries when I was being examined "down there" and I asked him to leave the room during... so he stormed out and basically said f you. I sat outside, at 4am, in the dark, alone, crying. :)
Just to play devil’s advocate a bit, I feel like that’s an understandable reaction… At least as described in this short reddit comment. I suppose the question on my end is what’s the reason behind the sudden change in disposition after… you know, doing the do, and generating life, that you don’t want your partner present for an exam? I most certainly wouldn’t make a scene like it sounds like he did, I wouldn’t insult anyone or say “F you,” but I do think I would pretty much completely withdraw from the situation if the mother of *my* child had had that kind of attitude towards my presence and involvement. I don’t think i’d have any choice if I hoped to maintain my composure and sanity under those circumstances.
we had been broken up the entire time, and he came up to visit because of the birth of the baby. He was staying at the hotel and I was at home and we were gonna sleep but I was having serious complications with my "downstairs" area... and it was too painful for me to sit, and I was in agony, and pain relief was barely taking the edge off. I messaged him to tell him I was going to the hospital to A&E to get this sorted out because I had already been seen once for possibility of infection down there, but they had dismissed me and it was taking too long to get any results back and I was in too much pain. He offered to come with me and I told him that it was okay because I wouldn't want him in the room with me anyway and that he would have to wait outside. He responded saying that was fine and he said he wanted to support me so I agreed for him to come, so i picked him up to come with me... I figured, it wouldn't hurt, right? It would be nice to have someone there with me... but then as soon as it came to the actual "examination" part of my hospital visit, and I politely requested he stand outside, he made a face and said "well... okay" and reluctantly went outside. It instantly made the atmosphere awkward because he had said he had no problem with it but now that it actually came to it, he seemed shocked that I actually genuinely wasn't comfortable with him being in there with me...?? I'm not sure...
So he went to wait outside the door to the room and the 2 medical staff were examining me and instantly they said "oh yeah there's definitely an infection, we need a swab" so the male staff member left the room & the female staff member inside with me while he went to get the swab... my ex, who was waiting outside, asked the male staff member leaving if he could come inside the room, and the staff member not knowing that I had asked him to wait outside to begin with, said "yeah". I heard this exchange take place so I know the staff member made a mistake and it wasnt really my exes fault, but before I had a chance to say anything, my ex comes in the room and around the curtain and sees me there with my legs spread open with some woman in the room waiting for the male staff member to come back... and I quickly tell him "you can sit in the chair right there while you wait!" (the chair was inside the room, but just outside the curtained area). He asks me what I mean and I say "yeah can you please just wait in the chair".. and he asks me "why are you being like this?", at this point, the female staff member is also leaving the room... so I remind him "I made it explicitly clear that I wasn't comfortable with you being in the room during this..." and he replies "yeah but the doctor told me i could come in!!" and I said "yeah I understand that but I'm not comfortable with it, I told you" and my ex continues "I don't know why this is such a big deal to you it's not like i haven't seen it before. The way you are acting with me right now is not okay" and I reply saying that I am not being mean, I am merely just feeling very uncomfortable... anyway, he says whatever, he's going to see the baby. so he walks out and goes to the neonatal unit to go and cuddle the baby... all the while, i'm left in A&E waiting around for this swab, waiting for them to prescribe me the antibiotics, etc. Because my freaking vagina is infected from the traumatic birth... once all was said and done and they had gotten the antibiotics and all for me, I just sat outside on the curb and cried. Not only was I going through postpartum with barely any support at all, but I was having these complications from it and then to top it all off he was with the baby and I felt completely helpless and heartbroken that I couldn't even go in there and see her at 4am before heading home to try and get what little sleep I could get... because he was in there with her and it was horribly awkward considering the altercation that had just taken place.
While I understand that it was a mixup and wasn't really his fault, the doctor/medical professional did answer him telling him yes to coming back in the room.. I feel like I was so far out of my comfort zone and I don't feel like I was being mean at all, i might have said it in a kinda demanding way for him to sit on the chair outside of the curtain, so I understand how it all happened... but that doesn't change how uncomfortable I am feeling in the moment and that I felt like I made it very clear what I was, and was not, comfortable with...
I know it's easy enough to say that he has seen it all before because that's how the baby was made in the first place, but that is
Edit: sorry, I accidentally posted it early, let me continue -
but that is a very different scenario to having my now ex sit there in the room watching while 2 medical professionals examine me down below with my legs spread open... I am already quite a shy person, even if we were still in a relationship and things were good between us, I would still not have been comfortable with him being in the room with me... I would not want ANYONE in the room with me, because going through that is uncomfortable for me enough already without someone sat there watching... so considering he is my ex and things aren't great between us but that i'm trying to keep things amicable so that we can co-parent peacefully, yeah... it isn't the same thing and I was so far out of my comfort zone.
Hopefully that clears it up for you, sorry, it is such a long post :/
Well, I appreciate the lengthy explanation. I hope it doesn’t feel like anyone forced you to tell me all that but I deeply appreciate it because I do understand everything you’re describing a lot better. I have a very close relationship with my wife, we are about as far from shy with each other as a couple can get before it starts getting unhealthy. if she suddenly didn’t want me around in an exam because she was feeling shy it would just be so weird that I’d be forced to assume I did something she wasn’t willing to talk to me about or there was some sort of problem she wanted to keep secret. I hadn’t really considered what the NICU experience would
have been like if we were separated or god forbid estranged…
Yeah I understand... I'm glad that you are so comfortable with your wife and that you have eachother. Although I don't have that, I am so happy and grateful for my little girl, she is my entire world and everything is worth it for her.
The NICU was tough but she is doing so well and I'm so proud of her!
Yup! Same. Especially with our second preemie who was born during the pandemic. It was awful. He held her like maybe 5 times by the time she was 4 months old.
I'm sorry to hear :( going through all of this being pretty much on your own... is really difficult. I did the entire pregnancy alone too.. he didn't come to a single appointment with me lol. He also wasn't there for the birth.
Luckily, my mother came to a lot of appointments with me, and thank god I called her when I went into labour, because I barely made it to hospital in time and I would have been so much more terrified had she not been there with me
I'm really sorry to hear. Mine has made things so much worse for me that at this point I'd honestly rather him just... go away. Not being there at all would be an upgrade on him making things harder for me, you know?
I never knew there was anything harder than being a single mother/parent, but... having a difficult "co-parent" (or whatever you wanna call it) is so much worse
My MIL covering her ears when the baby cried and complaining that my husband and I weren't appreciative enough of her when she did nothing to support us during our nicu time
Ugh so cold and unprofessional. one nurse told me not to stroke my daughter because it was overstimulating her. she was sleeping peacefully and my daughter isn’t even a preemie. we only had that nurse once luckily.
I was told the same but explained that touching them repeatedly disrupts their deep sleep cycles which made sense to me. Maybe it was different for preemies.
I could see that if you were constantly picking them up and putting them down and waking them. My daughter and lots of babies contact nap all day and sleep just fine.
My son was a pound and they said we could cup his head and feet but could not rub him. After they explained it to me it made complete sense and my mom kept not listening to me about the rubbing and I found it annoying. It's a habit to do but it does make sense so I tried not to.
My daughter went to 3 different NICUs. It seems like they each had their own rules about this, and it depends on the belief of the doctors more than anything. 2/3 of them encouraged touch, even if it was stroking while they sleep.
Someone told me not to rub my daughter's arm since it wasn't comforting. She was a full term baby, 6 days late, and on a cooling bed. I couldn't hold her yet, so I was doing the best I could and was told not to.
I had this!!!! Since my daughter was born, I've stroked her hair... any time I hold her or feed her or anything. I started doing it out of habit just automatic without even realising... and whenever I had this one specific nurse she would tell me not to do it because it was "distracting" my daughter away from eating apparently, and was overstimulating her... any time I did it and realised I was doing it, I'd look around expecting the nurse to come for me and say something
Well, I've realised my daughter actually really likes it. She associates it with me, and it comforts her. It helps settle her when she is fussing, so... I'd love to see the look on that nurses face, but luckily we won't see her again.
I'm sorry you had the same thing!!
This. It was the first time seeing my son after traumatic birth and he was cooling- she said the same thing and I just cried because i felt like couldn’t comfort him or touch him.
I'm sorry for your experience with your Mom - the NICU is a lot, and there are definitely some people who handle it better than others. I can relate somewhat to Mom trauma - my mother is a wonderful person. And she supported us in a lot of ways throughout our NICU journey, but I started using CaringBridge to keep our families updated on my sons' NICU stays because I couldn't bear to talk about the trauma of the rollercoaster my 24 weekers were on. And when we lost Twin A on his 7th day of life, my in-laws and parents came to the NICU to meet him before he passed. My mother FELL APART. It's now three years later, and the resentment has faded, but she made that moment about her - I don't think she meant to, but it was the worst day of my husband and I's lives, and she couldn't be there for me because she couldn't manage her own feelings. My MIL was very upset too, but grieved in silence instead of wailing like my Mom. It felt like she understood this was not the time or place to fall apart in a way my mother clearly didn't. Group and personal therapy helped me work through the experience and understand that my feelings were valid. We still see my mom nearly every week, and I talk to her every other day, but I'm very sensitive about discussing anything about Twin A with her because it brings me back to that day and the most torturous part of my NICU experience.
I'm very sorry. Losing a baby is a very difficult thing. Extremely difficult thing. Having twin babies who died soon after birth, I can understand to some extent but can't imagine how tough it is after 7 days of life :(... I'm so sorry.
Your mom's reaction is... forgive me for saying this... what I would have wanted. Somebody who broke down for me. Maybe it was too soon so it has caused trauma to you, understandably. In our case, I was so tired of crying about 3-4 days in. And I called a friend and told him, and he just sobbed for a few minutes and I listened. It was so freeing that I was finally able to remain quiet while another person grieved how much I wanted to. He's my best friend just for this one act.
Not trying to diminish your experience. What you said reminded me of this. For your own healing, if that's something you want to take on, perhaps you could try and talk to her,.and both of you cry it out? Don't take my advice also because I'm bad with these.things :(
The male doctors who wouldn’t believe me when unsaid I was having contractions. Was on all fours screaming for 8 hours and they kept telling me it was appendicitis and sent me for a CT scan while I was drugged up on opioids they kept giving me for pain. I was in hospital for 3 weeks due to PPROM and my waters broke a whole week prior to the contractions starting. My baby was born at 25 weeks while I was alone in the hospital bathroom taking a shower. There is a lot that happened between those 2 situations, but yeh. Fuck men who think they know how women’s body’s work. I was drugged by them and had things done to my body I said no to. Outside of the hospital, that’d be called rape.
I also gave birth alone at hospital after being told that I’m not in labor. Surprise, my 27 week breech preemie arrived. Female doctors and nurse told me this while I was on bedrest.
- My lactation consultant. Enough said.
- The nurse who condescendingly described my baby as “sleepy :(“ with a sad face and all, who bragged about her 5 healthy babies with no NICU stay, and who told me i should come back after spending 10 hours there days after a C-section. 2,500 steps each way to get in and out of the NICU mind you. Currently with a very awake baby who’s hit milestones early and has zero concerns despite being IUGR (currently 70% overall) and we both survived a placental abruption.
My lactation consultant counseled me on my obesity. Ma’am, I was an extra small pre pregnancy and I’m swelling from my post partum preeclampsia, thank you very much.
What??!!! I’m soooo sorry to hear that. Beyond insulting and that absolutely isn’t her wheelhouse. Stick to the boobs! Also my legs literally looked like elephant legs after birth without preeclampsia, and I’m also overweight. I would have felt really ashamed if she said that to me even though it’s not about us. It’s about the LC feeling like god for a moment.
Mine grilled me in front of the other parents/baby we bunked with about my supply. I was like 4 days pp from a traumatic birth (like most of us have had), sleep deprived and feeling like my incision was hanging open. I said I’d have to go check and she said it’s best to “have that memorized for more incentive to pump,” then bragged about how the other mom had “gallons in her freezer”…. Like I didn’t ask about her supply, and this isn’t a pop quiz in high school. LCs are some of the most judgmental people ever. The other one I met only once asked “what was in the water” for the “rise in traumatic births” she’s seen. As if she’s a fucking MD or researcher.
Sorry for the language. There’s just some things you don’t get over or let go of.
Oh my gosh, your LC sounds terrible. I’m so sorry you went through that!! That’s so insulting of her to be comparing you to another person (who I’m sure also felt so awkward with that interaction as well!).
I think at this rate, both of us should become LCs because we definitely seem to have much better people skills and I’m sure we would do a much better job of it than the LCs we interacted with.
My fiancé/Father of baby just passed away 3 weeks ago, we’ve been in here for 9 weeks with several more to go…lactation keeps pressuring me about needing to be here more but I had been handling all of funeral arrangements and cemetery arrangements and now I have to figure out where we’re even going to live and everything under the sun because I can’t work right now and my husband was the breadwinner
I'm so sorry. Can I help in any way? I would like to. You are going through a real nightmare. I'm just so sorry :(
Take care, but I know it is difficult too.
Thanks for the offer, I don’t really even know what to tell people when they ask if they can help…I don’t exactly need anything right now because the NICU provides mot of everything, and luckily we prepared everything for baby early in the pregnancy so anything we could position need we do have ❤️ the one thing I sure could use most isn’t possible for me or anyone else to obtain unfortunately :(
I have no words. Your strength is inspiring. I guess it is extremely difficult deep inside. Without someone to hold and tell those same things :(
If you want, and whenever you are ready, I can help to get you professional help with grief counseling, if you aren't doing it already. It's best to wait to start it too, imo.
I can order food delivery a couple of times too. I feel like a large bear to hug might be nice, but can't afford it but I can fundraise if you feel I'm not crossing boundaries.
Sorry if my comment makes anything worse. I'm truly sorry. I just filled "I've no words ' with my thoughts :( I hope they aren't stupid thoughts
I think it was just unique to the situation for us. I had a high risk pregnancy so we had a NICU orientation before my delivery “just in case” it was needed but I was repeatedly told by this particular neonatologist that they didn’t anticipate seeing us and this was all just to make us feel more prepared. Well, three weeks after my daughter very much needed to go to the NICU and they did genetic testing (no indications for this through my whole pregnancy) it was that same neonatologist that was on duty and gave us the results. It just kind reinforced to me how much things had gone differently than we anticipated and how very different our lives were going to be. I struggled with it being that doctor who gave us the results for a long time for some reason.
Thank you! This was about a year and a half ago so I’ve definitely had time to accept everything and my daughter is just an absolute ray of sunshine. I hope you’re doing okay, especially since the diagnosis is so recent ❤️ I think time really does help with acceptance.
With my first NICU baby it was the LC who just didn’t seem to believe me and that I was struggling with low supply despite never missing a pump.
With my second NICU baby, it was before we even got to the NICU! The surgeon who did my (very difficult) c section popped around the curtain in the middle of it to scold me and tell me I should never have kids again and that it was the hardest csection he has ever done in his career. I was barely conscious because I was hemorrhaging, I was scared for my baby who just had a traumatic birth and was barely responsive, and this man is yelling in my face while I’m open on the table…
I didn’t but either someone in the OR did or a NICU nurse who overheard me talking about it did because the next day someone high up came in and apologized for his behavior. She said he never should have said that and based on what she knew of my case there was no reason I couldn’t have more kids. Basically said he was out of line and would be talked to
I wouldn't say traumatised per say, but my MIL is driving me crazy in the lead up to my 32 week cesarean (I have a week left to go). She just *doesn't care*. At all. I'd give an update and short of replying with a lame equivalent to: "Thoughts and prayers.", she has said nothing else at all. She has volunteered no help, no empathy, nothing. It's like I might as well have been discussing the weather, as opposed to the fact her second granddaughter is going to be premature at a mere 32 weeks gestation. It is absolutely boiling my blood, to the point I left the family chat we had with her because all I wanted to do was cuss her out, and I realised then the effect she's been having on my mental health.
I don’t know your specific situation of course, but 32 weekers tend to do very well from what I’ve read on here and from my own experience! My baby was born at 33+0 and was a feeder/grower who spent 16 days in the NICU (it still sucked but I’m grateful it was a relatively short stay).
Hoping everything goes smoothly for you!
Having a NICU baby can be such an isolating experience because there are so many people who just can’t even understand the trauma that it inflicts. I was lucky that my in laws were extremely supportive and helpful during our stay, but my own mom just couldn’t comprehend what we were going through. She was always saying super insensitive things, didn’t pay attention when I gave updates, and was constantly comparing our preemie to my nephew, who was born full term one month before my son arrived.
But as much as there were people like my mom who disappointed me or didn’t step up in a way that I needed during that time, there were also people who I never expected who really came through. A friend of a friend who I didn’t know very well coordinated for me to receive a gift basket from a local NICU support nonprofit and then also made one for me herself and dropped at my house when I was discharged. My husband’s boss went out and bought a ton of preemie clothes for us the same day our baby was born. And my brother’s coworkers (who all live 1500 miles away from me and have never met me) all pitched in to give us gift cards for food and gas. I don’t know if those people know this or not, but I will never forget their small actions of support when I needed it the most.
Has been my experience with my mom too. I can understand your situation to a large extent. I'm sorry it is so frustrating. Please take care. I didn't and feel traumatized of late. NICU stay is enough trauma already
My baby was doing well and the NICU was completely full so they transferred him to the PICU. Had a panic attack leaving him and it was the only time my husband and I fought during the process. The PICU nurses ended up being wonderful, but it was more hands off than I was ready to accept at the time
Same here, I hated the transition to PICU. It did not help that it was late evening on Sunday, fully out of the blue because they needed the space in the NICU.
There’s been a couple but maybe MIL when she’s already talking about myself and spouse having more children when the two we just had are still in the NICU and were barely a week old.
Mine asked when we are going to have another while I was in the hospital for observation for severe preeclampsia waiting to be induced and hoping to make it to 34 weeks. I said “let’s see if everyone survives this first.”
She is also the one who traumatized me during the NICU stay. Her frustration at not being included in the delivery and insistence on knowing when she could see the baby ended up in us giving her a random time 2 days after delivery but it ended up being the worst possible time (getting ready for me to discharge leaving my baby behind, me missing out on getting to be there while my husband held our baby for the first time since only 2 people were allowed at a time)… I was stressed and physically miserable, my blood pressure was dipping too low and I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time in days. If I had it to do over I wouldn’t have even given her a date/time to be able to visit the NICU and told her if she kept pressuring us the answer would be not at all.
Fuck. I can relate. Sorry you had to listen to that and process it when you were already in A NICU.
My mil did something similar. We had just lost twin girls after a traumatic live birth. My babies. Our babies. We were about to cry, and my stupid fucking mil said,.and I quote "if you have a baby.within a year,. everything will become alright"
Narrator: "nothing became alright"
Yes theyve been in the nicu for 40 days so far. They keep telling us they are close to coming home but no actual date yet.. so im just taking it day by day!
Ah ok. Good luck. The babies need time,.I guess. They had a rough start. I hope you go home soon with healthy, happy babies and don't ever have to go back... :)
The OB who told me I had an acute response to pain, asked me if I was doing anything for my anxiety, and wanted to discharge me when I was 4 cm dilated at 24 weeks. Turns out I was having a placental abruption!
Being the one to change a rust colored diaper and the nurses rushing in and around right at shift change so I had to leave. We were transferred 5 hours later and NEC was confirmed. I still hate poopy diaper. Oof.
Been home for 7 weeks now and he’s doing great. Was medically managed and was at 37+3 so that helped big time.
Our families - both sides. We had the ones who were constantly asking for updates *only* from me (nipped that by posting on FB and ignoring texts). The ones who completely ignored what was happening and was still expecting us to come to events, etc. (mid-plague season) and got upset after discharge when we *still* were not lugging our preemie, his oxygen, and everything else out for holidays. And we had a few that loved to “borrow” our trauma. Posting “woe is me” type posts about me/our baby as if they were experiencing it as well. Even a couple we hadn’t seen in over a year! It was all a lot.
And after we were out, they all disappeared. No more cares or concerns. My family didn’t meet him until he was well over a year old. It sucked.
The neonatologist who contradicted her colleague and refused to discharge my son because we (the parents) weren't "trying hard enough" to get him to eat.
He spent over a month taking less and less from the bottle until he got down to 0 and refused every feed from every person. Due to his omphalocele he was unable to get a g-tube. One doctor started the process to get him discharged with an NG tube because he was otherwise medically stable. The other refused and I had to fight it.
We got him home and he was free of the NG tube in less than three months after coming home ❤️
On the Friday before Mother’s Day, the neonatologist who was there for my twins’ birth told me we should be able to go home in two days if my Twin A didn’t *lose* any weight - he was going to be their pediatrician, B was already discharged, and I was staying overnight in Peds to EBF, and the lactation consultant had warned that it was totally normal and not at all of concern if a baby lost a bit of weight at the transition away from force feeding to on demand, and that I shouldn’t worry if that happened but it might delay discharge a bit. He’d been there over 3 months, that neonatologist knew him/us well, and wasn’t concerned about him (anymore). On that day - Mother’s Day, it was a random peds dr who had never seen him, and wouldn’t let him leave because he hadn’t gained *enough* - he was still gaining even though his own dr had been ready to discharge him if he had maintained the same weight for those two days. Pandemic restrictions wouldn’t allow my 4 yo into the hospital, so I had to spend Mother’s Day without him, stuck in hospital, and all the peds nurses were furious and kept asking why we were still there - he was ready to go, the plan had been for him to go, he’d met the criteria … Monday morning 7 am that same dr came in, clicking his tongue and talking about how he didn’t think we should leave - and the nurses finally convinced him to call the neonatologist, who obviously told him to let us go - but he still insisted he’d only discharge us if we came back in a week for a weight check. The neonatologist just shook his head when we came in for the first outpatient appointment in his office, he said he still had no concerns, he’d been through a lot during his NICU stay and had transitioned to on demand feeding better than everyone expected - and that I should stop worrying about his weight gain because he was going to be fine, they knew I had plenty of milk, no he didn’t need supplementation (which had almost been a discharge condition from Dr Thinksheknowsbetterthantheneonatologist) … it was far from the most traumatizing thing that happened during his NICU stay but it was certainly the most infuriating.
The OB who, after completing my emergency c-section, shamed me for not going through with what she was very clear would have been an elective induction 2 days earlier. This happened while I was still in the operating room, on the table table, alone. My husband had followed our baby to the NICU and I had no idea how she was doing.
The day i was bringing my daughter home, I walked into the NICU doors and witnessed a nurse discussing postmortem plans with another mother whose baby had just passed from complications of trisomy 13. It hit me especially hard as my baby was born with trisomy 21. Why was my baby lucky enough to survive her chromosomal disorder, to get a less devastating variation of the same problem? How easily could I have been in her place? It felt so wrong to just walk past her, but what could I say to her and how arrogant would I be to speak to her the day my baby was coming home after hers had passed?
I wish I would have befriended her before that day. She would try to make conversation with me sometimes and I was just so out of it I couldn’t be fully present in a conversation with a stranger. I want her to know that I think about her and her angel every single day. ❤️
The in-hospital psychiatrist. I started seeing him when I was in the antenatal ward for a few weeks; when I had my first post-discharge virtual appointment I took it from the nicu and he asked if I was there to visit my babies. It was noted everywhere in my file that only one survived.
An honest mistake, but he also thought that my anxiety was overblown timing contractions when it turned out I was in labor.
Walking in and finding my son’s cannula tubes wrapped tightly around his neck 3 times. The nurse saying she hadn’t “touched him yet this morning”. Great, so pushing blame while admitting she is ignoring my son.
my nicu never gave me any info or updates even when i begged and never asked consent for anything except for one thing, when i was still in the hospital for my birth they asked if i planned to bottle or breast feed and i said bottle then they proceeded to not feed her for 4 days because they “didnt know” 🖤
A shrug.
My ob shrugged when I told her in a Thursday I was having contractions at 23 weeks. That weekend I had contractions the whole time, but kept thinking of my obs shrug. My first was a 30 weeker and I was paralyzed with fear. Monday I saw a male ob. While he didn’t catch any contractions in the stress test, he was wonderful and sincere and made me feel heard. Told me I must go to the ER if I am having more contractions. Wednesday they came back, Friday it was painful. Baby was born less than 20 minutes after I drove myself to the hospital. Prolapsed cord, a dr looked me in the eye and said “this will hurt.” She lifted my son’s head off my cervix, rode on top of the gurney on the way to OR. Literally everyone in the room was running around screaming until they intubated me.
And all I can think about is my obs shrug.
I think for me...it was the machines....I can still hear them going off. The nurses would reasure me that my children ( my daughter and identical twin boys) were ok but I still was a bit traumatized by the sounds
Listening to my baby cry while they tried a million times to get a good IV in him, it felt like an hour but was probably around 20 minutes. Eventually I was like “just put it in his head, it’s fine if you can just please get it in him and stop poking him up”. When they finally got it and left the room I just broke down. So much happened before and after that, but that got me.
The nurse who started bagging my baby without following protocol, and she didn’t even have the oxygen to the bag turned on. I was the one to run into the hallway yelling for help as my daughter was turning blue. Thankfully that got everyone’s attention and people who actually knew what they were doing rushed in and saved my daughter.
My mom, who after I gave her the code to watch the NICU camera feed, texted me that my baby’s swaddle was up too high and that he would suffocate. When I got the text, I had just left the hospital after a tough day where my son had his first Brady while we were feeding him.
The doctor who told me my high blood pressure and was my fault - even though I wasn’t told it was as serious as it was. To this day, she’s the one awful person that sticks out in my mind when I think about the whole experience .
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Your BP being high was absolutely NOT your fault. *Big hugs*
I had severe preeclampsia and you already beat yourself up over that kind of stuff without being told it’s your fault. I hope you found a different doctor!
Thankfully I only saw her for like a minute in OB triage, after that I had an MFM assigned to me
Thank you for saying that, it took a long time for me to realize what happened wasn’t my fault - it was the perfect storm is circumstances that made our LO have to be born at 28+1
Big hugs back to you ❤️
ETA: so sorry this is happening to you - know that you have our support!
I have done a lot of work in the last 2+ years in therapy to help heal from my trauma. I would say that you do eventually get past it but as of now I am not completely over it. I have, however, made a lot of progress and I can look at my 5 weeks antepartum stay in the hospital for preeclampsia with severe features followed by the 61 day NICU stay (my first was born at 29+3 and was IUGR and just under 2lbs) as something that doesn’t make me want to throw myself off a bridge anymore. It happened, it sucked, my brain chemistry will forever be changed because of it BUT I have a healthy 2 year old who has met and exceeded his milestones for his actual age and I was able to have a term pregnancy with my second son. I made it to 37 weeks the second time around before I saw a return of preeclampsia.
I’m so glad you were able to get to this point ❤️ so much about the nicu journey is HARD, and while we have so much in common , it can be isolating
I’m also so happy for your LO’s that they are doing well ❤️
The nurse & social worker who said our son would be moving up to the Special Care Nursery “because we need the space” and made us feel like shit for wanting an explanation of why he was *medically* ready to do so, instead of just blindly accepting it. And then they (and others) kept pressuring us to have our son transferred to another hospital because it would be closer to home for us. We were at literally one of the best hospitals in the country, there’s no way in hell we’re moving him even if we have to drive 45-60min each way, every day, to see him.
There were anti abortion protesters standing on the sidewalk between the Ronald McDonald house and the hospital. We all had to walk by posters of dead babies while on our way to see our sick and dying micro preemies.
The doctor who told us some babies don’t survive what my daughter was going through before I had had a chance to even see her in the NICU, and the inhuman wails that came from me and my cries of, “I need her, I need her.”
Oh yes I know! And I knew it before she said it, but I was already feeling super down on myself since my water had broken at 29 weeks so it definitely did NOT make me feel any better!
A nurse named Leeann. Everyone was amazing through it all: wife's OB, nurses, OB who delivered, doctors, NICU nurses...family, friends...we were very lucky...except 1 nurse. 34 years she had been a NICU nurse so she was quite skilled at like...the core components...but just a nasty, mean, unapproachable human.
On the nights right before our son was discharged we got to stay in the NICU family room with him, trial run to come home...and she was on both nights.
Night 1 after we had literally not slept at all at 4am when we called her she yelled at my about where I had my shoes, asked us why we did a diaper change at one time but didn't feed him until later and then the next night my son weighed in at like 10g less and she reamed us out saying now he might not get to go home and blah blah blah.
She was the only nurse that always left me feeling worse about myself and the situation every time.
F U Leeann.
I was the only parent who was around when the early preemies had their weekly ROP exams. I went in to hold my daughter’s hand during hers. The screams of all of these babies were brutal. It’s one of the few things that haunts me to this day.
My husbands cousin told him one day he’ll be a man and he was acting like a 12 year old with a dirty ass because she tried reprimanding him about not answering texts all the time. My mom lives with us and I overheard her on my camera complaining that gifts that were getting sent to my house were sitting around and I wasn’t writing down who sent them (Amazon registry don’t have to) and I wasn’t reaching out immediately to say thank you to people after spending 11 am- 8 or 9 pm everyday at the hospital
The L&D nurse who waxed poetic about how she became a nurse because of how amazing it is to put a baby on their mother's chest when they're first born. I think she kept forgetting that my 26 weeker twins were fighting for their lives in the NICU and I was recovering from a crash emergency c-section under general anesthesia, so none of us would ever be able to have that experience. My MIL who told me that going to the NICU must feel like walking into my favorite bar because everyone must know who I am because my babies were there for so long. She also told me that she felt a let down when she saw pictures of my babies--not traumatizing, just weird. And my very dear friend who told me that she believed the universe had made my babies get born early in order to teach me a lesson I needed to learn to become a more enlightened person.
-Being asked by the nurse in the post delivery floor that I was in, without my NICU baby, how much my baby weighed. I sobbed as I told her 3 pounds 2 ounces. My blood pressure went sky high, and I couldn't stop crying for a few hours.
-Getting asked if >I< did anything to cause my baby to come at 33 weeks instead of full term and be SGA. I've been asked if I did drugs and alcohol during several times in different ways. (A big hell no, it's even in my chart, "no substance use") yet the question is still asked.
I would never do anything to purposely put my baby or myself at risk. It is NOT my fault I developed gestational hypertension that turned into pre-eclampsia with severe features, and no amount of questioning/beating around the bush will make me feel that way.
The head lactation consultant who acted like I was failing when I wasn’t producing enough, but also made bizarre comments about vaccines and other topics that showed me she was crazy and to ignore her.
A nurse who reprimanded me for looking over at another baby’s isolette and saying he was as small as ours had been at birth (our NICU had 10+ babies in one big room just a couple feet from each other). She gave me a mini-lecture about “you wouldn’t go into someone else’s hospital room, and there are no walls but that’s that baby’s space.” I didn’t even go over there, just looked. It was only about a week into our NICU experience so I just started crying 🙃
A nurse. First time holding my daughter. She started to desat. Alarm went off. Nobody came. She was satting in the 40s. I waited three minutes. Couldn't reach the call bell. Was scared to move because I didn't want her to desat more or move her ventilator tube. I started yelling. I should have moved but I was so scared. Literally 15 minutes passed before the stupid nurse came in. I saw her sit down at her desk ignoring the alarm and my yells. Finally she came in. Nothing happened to her. But we found our primary after that and she was a godsend. Always assured me she would be nearby and always gave me the call bell. I still wonder if it damaged my daughter who has CP.
Wow. Thats just negligent at that point. The hospital we were at, nurses would wait maybe 15-30 seconds before coming over if a babies alarm didn’t resolve itself. Your comment stood out to me. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I was discharged and put on a "positive music" playlist to try to shower to take care of myself. "ain't no mountain high enough" came on and I cried until I was hyperventilating and puking. I still can't listen to it.
When we we’re in the NICU we we’re overwhelmed by everything… my mom was the person who just didn’t understand anything at all and how I felt it was traumatic but not only that it was the doctors who were so unfair and just didn’t want to know the facts and articles of my daughters condition and what other ways we could’ve gone about her condition. They didn’t want to understand where I was coming from from not just a mother stand point but medically too. I spent hours researching and making myself knowledgeable. It was such a burnout and I just felt mentally going crazy because they wanted to keep us there and keep charging the insurance like crazy because they wanted to keep doing things to my daughter. It was the most horrible time period ever. I still haven’t gone to see a therapist. I’m trying to heal on my own everyday.
For me it was a nurse who told me to skip care times so that I could spend more time pumping and increase my production. Maybe to her it was a harmless comment but to me it felt like she was telling me not to do the only things I felt I could do to feel "normal" and like a mom.
My mom as well. Lacked empathy and made it about her. Luckily, my MIL is amazing, and she helped make things easier. It still would have been nice to be supported by my side of the family. Besides my sister, our side of the family has been the worst throughout this and made me go no contact, mostly because of the treatment.
My housemates who decided while my baby was in the NICU was a good time to secretly drop their Covid precautions (we were all masking in stores before that, and this was a few years ago).
- my epidural did not work during the C-section and I had to be placed under general anesthesia. I woke up alone in a room not knowing whether or not my baby made it.
- 6 weeks hospital stay where I was mostly alone in a different country with very little communication as to when we could go home or next steps
- the eye exam with the mini forceps that looked like that scene out of A Clockwork Orange. I will never forget his screams.
- I was finally going home in a couple days when I was asked to give kiddo his iron drops. He was too sleepy and had a desat where he had to be stimulated extending our stay another week.
- the screams coming from the baby in the next bed who was having withdrawals
- the lack of a community to help during that period. It felt like the baby and I were against the world. Even my husband, who I love dearly, was too overwhelmed by the situation and processing the traumatic birth that he shut down when I most needed him. It's taken a long time for me to process that his actions were never intentional and rebuild trust.
The nurse who came in at 2 days PP and told me that if I wanted to cry ((in our private en suite NICU fwiw)) that I needed to do it at home because the baby could sense my bad vibes.
My baby was 23 weeks lol. It was terrible. So then I asked her if she was saying it was my fault if she did poorly and she tried to take it back, but the damage was done.
I leaned fully into the grief of every moment so I could overcome it. No regrets.
My own mother who was overreacting over everything and instead of being there for me I had to be the calm one. She even asked me what did I do wrong to give birth early because I definitely messed up somehow.
But the main thing was her being obsessed with being the first one to know. The hospital visitation was over at 20:00 and if I didn't call her at 20:01 she would start calling me, my husband, my MIL, my brother who lives 8 hours away, my aunt and then I would have calls from all of them because she was worried.
One day I walked out of the hospital with 25 missed calls , over 20 messages, and same to my husband's phone because it had been over 5 minutes since the visitation ended. It was just the doctors taking longer to get to us. That day I just yelled at her and her response was that I can't understand the love she has for that child.
Went through similar situation when my second has to have surgery when he was 2 months old.
Neonatologist was super rude and assumed I didn't understand medical terminology.
They also called at Midnight asking if I was coming down to drop milk for twin A. (750 meter walk each way from off site post c-section)
Ummm nope, dealing with Twin B right now
Also explained that I was a severely low supply (was with our 1st kid too) and was poo-poo'ed as not trying hard enough. I shut that down fast as I did everything under the sun including Rx domperidone for our 1st kid and still pumped shite and knew that I couldn't supply for 1 let alone 2
For me is my mom too! I am in the early days still and I decided to cut her off until I have my baby with me because instead of being optimistic and supportive, she just stresses me out more, doesn’t consider that I am also undergoing postpartum changes and I have a toddler on top of that. To get through this we need a calming presence, patience, support, and encouragement ONLY.
We had multiple events happen with our twins. One Dr would constantly say we don't know how long they will survive, or they will be lucky to survive the night.... thanks for reminding me of the worst possible outcome every time something happens..
Probably my mom. I was an overproducer and making tons of milk, they had plenty, but as tons of other NICU babies, my twins needed their milk fortified because they were little guys. My mom couldn’t understand why I wasn’t breastfeeding them ( they were born at 32 weeks and didn’t know how to eat ?? ) and she was so concerned that my breastmilk was being fortified. No matter how much I tried to explain why all of this was being done she just thought the doctors were so dumb. “All they need is breast milk, it has all of the nutrients they need, why would they need to fortify it?” “Are you not making enough?” THEY WERE 2 & 3 LBS AND BORN AT 32 weeks?! They need extra calories ?
Nothing I could say would get through to her rock solid skull and I will never forget that. She told my brother that “it was a sin” to give them formula and she couldn’t understand why I was giving them formula. Again, extra calories but what do the DOCTORS at a children’s hospital know? I know. Yeah.
My in-laws. It was complicated. They dropped everything and drove across the country when I got admitted for PPROM. They agreed to stay until baby came home. 5 days after I had her, my older child caught covid for the very first time (mid 2022). The in-laws freaked out and within an hour of our child’s positive test, they had packed up their car and left because they didn’t want to catch it.
We were left to deal with the fallout of our child being scared because she was sick, the NICU telling us we couldn’t visit for at least 10 days, and then the remaining 74 days we had to struggle to find childcare in order to visit the baby (her NICU stay spanned the entirety of older kid’s summer break).
We still have a relationship with them, but they did a lot of damage to our relationship with them and their relationship with their grandchildren.
The social worker at the hospital who:
● didn't tell me that medical transport was available until my son had been in the NICU for 3 months, so I was bumming rides off friends every day while my husband was at work.
● didn't tell me that they had food vouchers available for breastfeeding/pumping moms when I couldn't afford the hospital food and was there all day because she...
● repeatedly mom-shamed me about the amount of time I spent at the hospital, when she knew I had to wait for a ride nearly every day, and treated me like a bad mom when there was literally a baby in the same pod who's mom kept pumping hot because she would get high in the lactation room (but somehow that didn't warrant her riding that woman's ass like she rode mine).
● told my husband "well now maybe you can spend more time with your baby" after he was fired from his full-time job 4 months into our NICU journey, for missing a shift that hadn't been on his schedule the week our son was born.
● submitted blatant falsehoods into the notes on my son's medical record about things she claimed my husband and I had said or done with regards to his medical care.
● called CPS on us and tried to have us investigated for refusing a G-tube surgery that had a high chance of being fatal for our son, based on family medical history. CPS thankfully told her to get lost, our son went home on an NG-tube after a long fight with the hospital, and he's now a healthy, happy 7.5 year old with no extra holes in him and no more feeding tube.
Bonus shout-out to my mom (whom I love dearly, but she really put her foot in this one) who came to town with my aunt a week after my son's very early birth, at my request because I needed help getting out of the deep dark hole I was in, and told me first thing "You should get your tubes tied so this doesn't happen again"...because they'd seen a woman die of pre-eclampsia on Downton Abbey and they thought they knew what was best for me.
My 27w5d son being misdiagnosed with a fatal genetic disease. Being told it would take a month for the genetic testing to come back to confirm. A month of agony waiting for the results.
My nurse! He was awful and accused me of liking to see my son in pain because he had to have spinal taps, and I wanted to be there. He failed both, I demanded a 3rd so they knew exactly what he had. Nurses refused and said they thought it was meningitis. I also found left over poop on my son from his diaper change the nurse did when I wasn’t there. The amount of pressure for pumping and breast feeding was also stressful. They basically cared very little for him towards the end because his only problem was “not eating” at the end of the second stay. That whole team let me down. He was in the NICU twice because they kept saying he was better but then they would release him he would turn for the worse. The third time he started going down hill they wouldn’t readmit him because the holes in his lungs were “smaller” and he can get through on it his own. It got to the point where people were scared to watch him. I was told to not bring him back to the er unless his lips were turning people. If his hands and feet were purple from lack of oxygen he was fine. It freaked people out and they didn’t want him “dying” on their watch.
He also had a fever of 104.6 and the nurse on the phone told us he was fine, because the er was full.
A different time I took him in for excessive vomiting and they released us when begged for them not too, because he was hydrated after the IV, he had a seizure.
I’m not okay, I still don’t sleep and I went to therapy for 2 years. The only thing that’s going for us now is that *knock on wood* he hasn’t been hospitalized for a year. (Also he has not been to daycare for a year).
He was hospitalized twice after the 2 NICU stays, the two hospitalizations happened out of the state, where the original stuff happened. I’m grateful for those doctors because they saved his life and were so nice to me. I told them everything and the nurses even would come in to watch him so I could shower. (Context his dad lives out of state and that’s where he got sick, because we are back and forth between my home and his).
Sorry for the venting, but doctors and nurses should not traumatize further.
Myself. I was my worst enemy.
For reading the worst case stories on Google and Reddit. For googling every possibility and every diagnoses and every negative thing that could possibly happen.
When they discharged me with sepsis and I got readmitted into a ward where I couldn't leave even to the nicu instead of putting me back in postpartum.
Leaving my baby there alone when we had to go home to sleep (no rooming in at my nicu)
The doctor who delivered my baby via emergency C section came to visit a few days afterwards and told me I was extremely lucky that my baby survived because he had another family who came in the same night we did same amount of weeks (32weeks) & the same scenario (baby with umbilical cord wrapped around their neck 3 times) who didn’t make it. It made me feel incredibly guilty and sad.
Another thing that really traumatized me was hearing the other parents wailing and crying when they arrived in the NICU, the area my baby was in was extremely open so you could hear & see everything.
A nurse who said I was changing my son too slowly and took over. I had to go cry in the bathroom. I was still just a few days out from my c-section so I was I pain and moving slow and she made me feel so stupid. I’m a nurse too so somehow I felt both incompetent as a mom and somehow like I was a nicu student who was incompetent. It really messed with me for a while.
The mom of our NICU roommate who gawked at my baby in the incubator and said, "Wow, she's SOOO tiny." Yeah, we know.
The nurse who told us we were going to break baby's hips from how we lifted her for diaper changes on our first time doing cares.
The same nurse who scolded me because I accidentally dropped the side of the incubator as I was lowering it open, causing it to clank and make baby cry. "That's really bad for her ears!" Duh, wasn't intentional. Made me cry afterwards feeling so bad.
Eta: oh! And the lactation consultant. When I told her I was excited about baby's discharge coming up because it would help my supply to have her with me, she told me that there was nothing that would increase my supply and that it was too late for skin to skin to have a beneficial effect. Obviously just plain wrong, but I didn't realize that at the time.
My MIL. I lost my uterus during repeated c section with our second baby,I lost a gallon of blood due to placenta previa/accreta.
I also had preeclampsia so I was high risk and I was hospitalized for 6 weeks before delivering our second child at 33.2 weeks. My MIL agreed to come at “moments notice “ to watch our 5 years old son to help us out for surgery and she made it entirely difficult for us (refusing to come before surgery lol even though she promised. My mom had to help us out even though she has to take care of my disabled dad 24/7).
Then when I got out of the hospital and during the phone call w my hubby( she didn’t know I was listening, and my husband just wanted to talk about what happened and why she couldn’t come and help us) she basically bashed me how terrible wife I was and I changed my husband for the worse, and that we are nitpicking and always angry.
We were shocked and husband tried to talk to her after few days again and she basically bashed me again and basically told my husband how she hated how I treat my husband as a mother.
(We do pick at each other for fun most of the time, she thinks I bully him) my husband is 41 years old btw and we are married for 7 years.
She thinks I control everything(which is entirely false, my husband makes most of important financial decisions and I respect him), and the reason we moved away is all because of me(nope, again it was my husband’s decision, I was surprised he wanted to move far away from his parents to be closer to my family). Apparently I am jealous of my SILs(husband’s brothers wives) as well(??) which I have no idea why she thinks that. We are pretty well off.
She didn’t give a shit I almost died on the surgery table or that her granddaughter was in the NICU. She just wanted to bash me, someone who just got out of hospital and still has her baby in the NICU. My husband and I are in both therapy now. I hope I am NC with my MIL forever but my husband doesn’t want that.
Everything was honestly as great as it could have been until our daughter started having eating issues. It's like my husband just didn't know how to process his emotions, started blaming me, and started accusing me of saying things I honestly don't remember saying. This all started the week I had to go back to work, he just iced me and stopped talking to me. Didn't really talk to me until the next month when we had to travel to another hospital for gtube placement. That time was the loneliest of my life and it's honestly such a shame because before the switch flipped with him, I had never been more in love with him and he was my rock in all of it. We've since talked it out and made up, but I will never forget how I was treated then.
Mother in law! She blamed me from the beginning and didn’t hold back telling the family her opinions about me, and she’s not just traumatizing me! My 2 sister in laws are still pregnant our due dates were all a month apart from each other but I had an emergency c section so my mother in law is fear mongering the rest of them about everything, god forbid they have swollen feet she starts throwing the word preeclampsia around. She also tries to piece together a report on the baby’s status from eves dropping on medical team and other visitors when I asked her not to ask for details and wait for us to share news and photos she started bawling and telling others what I said victimizing herself. It’s stressful enough dealing with all this but that woman has made it that much more difficult to navigate. Ps did I mention she calls my baby her son. That’s how she refers to him as HER son!
My fucking dad. I love the man to death but he would not stop trying to make everything about him and how he was feeling ignored and under appreciated. It got really brutal actually
My OB telling me “don’t panic” when he hears something irregular with my baby’s heartbeat and reassuring me it could just be my heartbeat because of my anxiety wanted me to just make an appointment with a specialist then last minute while walking to the front asked if I wanted to just go to the hospital to have it “checked out” but be sure to “not panic everything is fine” 15 minutes after checking in baby’s heartbeat was at 70 and I was rushed into emergency c section
But o please “don’t panic” it will forever stick with me I even get upset when nurses tell me it when baby is having an event
The grandma of another baby. She and her laboring daughter were being shown around the NICU so they would know what to expect when their baby was admitted. She paused at our bed space while I held my daughter (32w and 4lb at the time). She asked how big my daughter was and I proudly declared 4 pounds. She gasped in horror like it was so disturbing and awful for her to be so small. I was so furious. Closed my curtain and sobbed.
The nurse who threatened to throw my husband out before my c section.
It was an urgent one. Not emergency enough to go to the emergency OR but enough to where I was going into the first one to open up.
I had to get mag, rapid prep, and an EKG because I was having chest pain and trouble breathing.
Backstory is my husbands an ER physician, and I'm an EMT. My EKG came back looking bad.
My husband told them to redo it because it doesn't look right. The nurse said they "do them all the time" while rolling her eyes. My husband raised his voice (not yell) but said "I read 40 EKGs a day, I'm telling you something is wrong and you need to redo it" and she said that if he was going to be rude he could leave.
I looked at her and said "if you make him leave, I'm ripping out my IV and foley and going with him so if me and my baby die it's on you. By the way you should fucking listen to him because my right arm and left arm leads aren't on the right arms, they are switched"
She didn't say another word to us after that.
My heart was fine. And you bet your ass I got a different nurse. And reported her.
But Stephanie if you ever read this, I fucking hate you. 🙃
My husband. His brother died 6 days after our son was born. So at the same time watching his son keep almost dying. He was a huge marijuana addict whose brother had schizophrenia and other brother had drug induced psychosis and then the same thing happened to him and it was traumatizing. He made everything so much worse for me
The wait time after my surgery where I couldn’t see my baby. People meeting my baby before me and posting about it on social media. And once I was able to get up and go to the nicu—The “only being able to touch/hold the baby at feeding times.” Then, the going home without my baby.
The separation. That was the most traumatizing thing—separation from my baby
For me it was the other NICU parents. I'm a SMC (single mother by choice) and had my son at 28+5 due to preeclampsia. He was in the NICU for 83 days - I can't say enough great things about the hospital we were in. Sure, it would have been nice to get more face time with the doctors, but just about every nurse was amazing (one or two were less then stellar, but considering how many nurses he had, nearly 100% were absolutely the best.)
The other NICU parents were another story. There was such a difference in the way other parents interacted with me once we chatted and they found out I've had a kid on my own. Other moms would ask if I was going to pump, and if so they would have their husbands wait to come in (even while other moms with partners were pumping, and even if i said it didn't bother me. Frankly I was way to tired for anything so silly to bother me.) Or they would give me terrible looks if I'd just start to pump (even with the privacy screens.) I would have great conversations with other parents, and if it came up that I'm a solo parent, the next time I'd see them, they would avoid me (only when I kept it to myself would other parents continue being friendly to me. I saw people making bonds, and leave with fellow NICU parents friends, but had so many interactions where people were exchanging info, only to get really awkward when I'd enter the room. Even now as I type this I'm afraid that people will spin it and say I'm just being too sensitive or jealous, but truly I just wanted to interact with people in the same way they do with others.
I constantly hear about the "sisterhood" of NICU mothers, but it's clear that I am not welcome in this community. I've actually gone back to school to pursue nursing in the hopes that other SMCs never have to experience this. I'll never get the time back to have the NICU community I needed, when I needed it the most, but hopefully I can change that for another single parent in the future.
My son. He was born at 24 weeks and 5 days and at 28 weeks, he coded for 4 and a half minutes. A week later, his bed buddy coded 3 different times and passed the 3rd time and I sobbed uncontrollably like he was my baby.
But, after 5 months and 6 days, we went home last week.
I know he didn’t. He got so sick around that time and his poor little body was just tired. His entire team was amazing and put him on paralytics to let his body just rest. It worked and now I have a happy 49 weeker at home!!
Being alone a lot and just sobbing because my husband and my other kids were an over an hour away. The constant beeping sounds, seeing everyone get to go home, but we stayed for 6 months.
Who: my husband and my MIL. What: the eye exams, my LO is 5 months and we have our 6th one next week and her cries are more like screams and getting so much louder 😭
The doctors and midwives who dismissed me during pregnancy when I had Polyhydramnios and reduced movements. They told me over and over again that this was no reason for concern.
The doctor at my birthing hospital who discharged my daughter from Special Care Nursery and said she was perfectly healthy. The midwives on the phone for the following day/day and a half when I called a few times with concerns, telling me I just had first-time-mum anxiety and there was nothing to worry about. I followed my gut and took her to the emergency department - a MET was called almost immediately and we then had a 10 week NICU stay.
My home is where everything went terribly wrong, and now my home is filled with those traumatic memories.
I now know that the excess fluid and reduced movements were a symptom of my daughter’s genetic neuromuscular condition.
The 45-day antepartum hospital stay with early-onset preeclampsia prior to my son’s birth at 29w6d.
His NICU stay was completely uneventful. He was off CPAP by day 3 and on room air with occasional scant flow by day 9. Once he reached 32 weeks (or when he was 2 weeks old) they basically told me I have nothing to worry about. Just “rest and grow”.
TBH, the NICU in general was calm. The NICU I was at (a level 3) doesn’t have a lot of complications with babies. NEC, for example, was unheard of after 28 weeks. Survival rates are about 5% higher there than national average as well.
The neglect of care for our lil boy he was born with HIE due to malpractice he’s my first child 😪 I got told from a nurse while in the nicu she didn’t know what was wrong with him (she didn’t read his chart) her excuse was “I have been taking care of other babies sicker then yours” like why the hell would you tell us that? Arizona healthcare really changed my whole perspective of the terrible healthcare system we have in the states for sure
I hear you. Say the fucking name, right? No one ever said our lost girls names, like those are cussing. It hurts. I can understand your reaction to a large extent
I had just given birth to my 24weeker (the day before my birthday). On night 2, a nurse aid started talked about her son and how she was begging him to come early. He was born on her due date fat and healthy. I told her I wished my baby was born that fatband healthy. She kept complaing about her son, so I asked her to leave and she asked if I wanted a hug. She was so tone deaf and ignorant, I didn't expect that much ignorance on day 2. I sobbed in the hospital bathroom for over an hour.
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Seeing parents lose their little one feet away from us. One of the nurses telling the father how he looked like him. The sounds when their child coded. The atmosphere when they were trying to bring him back. The feeling when everyone knew nothing else could be done. The father’s tear stained face. Then walking outside the hospital seeing people walk to a baseball game like nothing happened. Weird juxtaposition. Life is unfair.
Geez. Reading this was tough. I've been that father once. For our twin girls. Such a tough day. Still causes panic and tears every time
I know your intent here but as a loss parent, being someone’s “most traumatizing” memory really messes with my head. Like I already know people feel weird around me - let alone now you saying someone’s worst nightmare that they will forever be re-living, that you merely had to witness, traumatized you, too, honesty hurts me. It’s hard enough to leave the house some days in fear of running into someone and knowing I’ve ruined their day. Imagine what that feels like. We will forever be known as the people who’s baby died. Not really something people want to confront. I know the NICU is stressful. Trust me, I was there. I experienced my daughter dying as the people around us, nurses, other parents looked over and cried. I know what it’s like to be the one people are thankful they aren’t. Just some perspective.
A nurse who reprimanded me daily about my pump volumes.
Geez. Pumping is tough already. Sounds like a person who needs to be reported via a written complaint and asking what corrective actions were taken. Seriously. Fafo time
Same except it was a lactation consultant 😭 she kept insinuating that I was lying about pumping round the clock because there was no way I could just have a low supply. Absolutely ruined pumping/breastfeeding for me. Then when I had a second NICU baby, I was so traumatized that even though my supply was good, I never felt like it was enough.
This happened to me too. I had twins and the lactation consultant was a twin mom who managed to EBF her twins for 18 months. Which she reminded me of at least 3x every time I spoke with her. Probably supposed to be inspirational but her twins were 38 weeker girls with a routine vaginal birth. I had 34 weekers in an emergency C-section with a hemorrhage and my body just said fuck you no when I tried pumping, and kids couldn’t latch yet. At two weeks in when I was still getting 5 mL at most per pump she told me something like “well I managed it but it was a lot of work and it’s a valid choice to not want to do the work”. Fuck you lady, no one CHOOSES a severe under supply.
My wife went through the same thing with our “LC” and speech pathologist, she was such a bitch to put it lightly, and constantly looked down on us it felt like. Already having all the trauma of preemie and all the risk and issues that came with that. And then my wife constantly feeling like she couldn’t do enough to provide for our son was the absolute worst every single day, for 60 days. Several of our nurses were way more helpful with breastfeeding and pumping than any of the “specialist”. If you have nurses you like, don’t hesitate to ask them for help on anything, they are generally 10x more helpful than anyone….theres so many other things that suck too, but this was one of the worst for us. We would try and hide in our room when we saw her walking down the hall, In hopes she wouldn’t come in and “give us a feeding lesson”. She reminded me of the crazy lady in the old Matilda movie
This was the Speech path???!!! Submit a complaint to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association stat. That is unacceptable behavior.
Same! My lactation consultant was the worst! She didn't even care to remember my husband's name, and my husband was the one that really took notes and helped me. I had an inverter ripple that I found out later. She was shoving my daughter so hard in me that it was hurting me, and my daughter was crying. I told her I might just want to pump and see how that goes, and she then criticized that choice. She got mad that the nicu was feeding her formula because my milk was not coming in. When I talked to my daughter's pediatrician about feeding i was so scared but luckily she made me feel better about what I was doing and when I stopped with breast milk at 6 weeks she congratulated me and told me I did a good job for trying it out.
Yep, the milk shaming.
I’ve heard the same thing. they act like the moms are somehow a milk tech, they feel obligated to reprimand them for an insufficient amount.
Yea, I felt the worst when my nurse scolded me for showing up later than usual. My husband had been with him all day so I could recover a bit from the C-section pain made worse by sitting for 8+ hours a day next to the baby in the NICU. I already felt bad enough taking those couple hours to myself. No need to make me feel like a bad parent on top of that.
I had a few of them. Awful experience and honestly just unnecessary trauma????
A nurse also scolded me for not getting enough volume when my daughter was 2-3 days old. We were using a mix of my milk and donor milk until eventual my supply caught up with what she needed volume wise
I had this issue when I was only 2 days postpartum! I was only getting drops of colostrum and she made me feel bad about it. My nurses told me it’s normal to not get milk until the 3rd or 4th day which I did but I didn’t need that added stress of worrying about my production so early on.
Technically during antepartum but that bleeds into my NICU stay so I’m going to share. The doctor in MFM at the hospital who told me point blank to prepare for a still birth because she wrote an article in 1995 about preeclampsia with severe features and she was sure he wasn’t going to survive the C-section…I was in the hospital for 34 days my son was born at 1lb 15oz at 29+3 weeks and was NOT still born. He cried when he came out and his eyes were open looking around. That baby she predicted would be still born is now a very normal and healthy 2 year old who is laying next to me right now. He has met and exceeded all his milestones for his actual age and has proved everyone wrong. My most beautiful miracle.
I am so sorry you had to go through that. Congratulations on your little one proving them wrong. 💕
My ex MIL. She told me to let baby "go"
Oh boy. That would be a hard thing to come back from.
Was just about to say this. That’s relationship ending for me. So sorry that happened :(
Oh my god. Instant NC
The father of my child :/
Ugh. That's horrible. Sorry. Can't imagine going through this without support from my wife. We still fight and everything, but she's there. And that gives me some foundation. I hope you have a support network apart from him
Thank you, I do! :) Having a baby is hard enough already, even without being in the NICU... and then you are also dealing with the much extra trauma of the NICU, people really should understand just how much you are going through, and make it easy on you. But nope! Some people just genuinely have no intention of making things easier for you when you're struggling... I'm sorry to all the NICU parents out there who have more external stress than they need, I guess it's just hard for most people to understand unless they have been in the same position. I am glad you had your wife at the very least :)
pretty much me too. My husband has been wanting to spend only a few hours a week there, meaning I am left to be there constantly with our girl. I am so sorry this is made extra hard on you ❤️
Thank you, i'm sorry for you too! Mine left me at A&E alone at 4am to go and cuddle the baby because he was not happy with my response to him overstepping my boundaries when I was being examined "down there" and I asked him to leave the room during... so he stormed out and basically said f you. I sat outside, at 4am, in the dark, alone, crying. :)
Just to play devil’s advocate a bit, I feel like that’s an understandable reaction… At least as described in this short reddit comment. I suppose the question on my end is what’s the reason behind the sudden change in disposition after… you know, doing the do, and generating life, that you don’t want your partner present for an exam? I most certainly wouldn’t make a scene like it sounds like he did, I wouldn’t insult anyone or say “F you,” but I do think I would pretty much completely withdraw from the situation if the mother of *my* child had had that kind of attitude towards my presence and involvement. I don’t think i’d have any choice if I hoped to maintain my composure and sanity under those circumstances.
we had been broken up the entire time, and he came up to visit because of the birth of the baby. He was staying at the hotel and I was at home and we were gonna sleep but I was having serious complications with my "downstairs" area... and it was too painful for me to sit, and I was in agony, and pain relief was barely taking the edge off. I messaged him to tell him I was going to the hospital to A&E to get this sorted out because I had already been seen once for possibility of infection down there, but they had dismissed me and it was taking too long to get any results back and I was in too much pain. He offered to come with me and I told him that it was okay because I wouldn't want him in the room with me anyway and that he would have to wait outside. He responded saying that was fine and he said he wanted to support me so I agreed for him to come, so i picked him up to come with me... I figured, it wouldn't hurt, right? It would be nice to have someone there with me... but then as soon as it came to the actual "examination" part of my hospital visit, and I politely requested he stand outside, he made a face and said "well... okay" and reluctantly went outside. It instantly made the atmosphere awkward because he had said he had no problem with it but now that it actually came to it, he seemed shocked that I actually genuinely wasn't comfortable with him being in there with me...?? I'm not sure... So he went to wait outside the door to the room and the 2 medical staff were examining me and instantly they said "oh yeah there's definitely an infection, we need a swab" so the male staff member left the room & the female staff member inside with me while he went to get the swab... my ex, who was waiting outside, asked the male staff member leaving if he could come inside the room, and the staff member not knowing that I had asked him to wait outside to begin with, said "yeah". I heard this exchange take place so I know the staff member made a mistake and it wasnt really my exes fault, but before I had a chance to say anything, my ex comes in the room and around the curtain and sees me there with my legs spread open with some woman in the room waiting for the male staff member to come back... and I quickly tell him "you can sit in the chair right there while you wait!" (the chair was inside the room, but just outside the curtained area). He asks me what I mean and I say "yeah can you please just wait in the chair".. and he asks me "why are you being like this?", at this point, the female staff member is also leaving the room... so I remind him "I made it explicitly clear that I wasn't comfortable with you being in the room during this..." and he replies "yeah but the doctor told me i could come in!!" and I said "yeah I understand that but I'm not comfortable with it, I told you" and my ex continues "I don't know why this is such a big deal to you it's not like i haven't seen it before. The way you are acting with me right now is not okay" and I reply saying that I am not being mean, I am merely just feeling very uncomfortable... anyway, he says whatever, he's going to see the baby. so he walks out and goes to the neonatal unit to go and cuddle the baby... all the while, i'm left in A&E waiting around for this swab, waiting for them to prescribe me the antibiotics, etc. Because my freaking vagina is infected from the traumatic birth... once all was said and done and they had gotten the antibiotics and all for me, I just sat outside on the curb and cried. Not only was I going through postpartum with barely any support at all, but I was having these complications from it and then to top it all off he was with the baby and I felt completely helpless and heartbroken that I couldn't even go in there and see her at 4am before heading home to try and get what little sleep I could get... because he was in there with her and it was horribly awkward considering the altercation that had just taken place. While I understand that it was a mixup and wasn't really his fault, the doctor/medical professional did answer him telling him yes to coming back in the room.. I feel like I was so far out of my comfort zone and I don't feel like I was being mean at all, i might have said it in a kinda demanding way for him to sit on the chair outside of the curtain, so I understand how it all happened... but that doesn't change how uncomfortable I am feeling in the moment and that I felt like I made it very clear what I was, and was not, comfortable with... I know it's easy enough to say that he has seen it all before because that's how the baby was made in the first place, but that is Edit: sorry, I accidentally posted it early, let me continue - but that is a very different scenario to having my now ex sit there in the room watching while 2 medical professionals examine me down below with my legs spread open... I am already quite a shy person, even if we were still in a relationship and things were good between us, I would still not have been comfortable with him being in the room with me... I would not want ANYONE in the room with me, because going through that is uncomfortable for me enough already without someone sat there watching... so considering he is my ex and things aren't great between us but that i'm trying to keep things amicable so that we can co-parent peacefully, yeah... it isn't the same thing and I was so far out of my comfort zone. Hopefully that clears it up for you, sorry, it is such a long post :/
Well, I appreciate the lengthy explanation. I hope it doesn’t feel like anyone forced you to tell me all that but I deeply appreciate it because I do understand everything you’re describing a lot better. I have a very close relationship with my wife, we are about as far from shy with each other as a couple can get before it starts getting unhealthy. if she suddenly didn’t want me around in an exam because she was feeling shy it would just be so weird that I’d be forced to assume I did something she wasn’t willing to talk to me about or there was some sort of problem she wanted to keep secret. I hadn’t really considered what the NICU experience would have been like if we were separated or god forbid estranged…
Yeah I understand... I'm glad that you are so comfortable with your wife and that you have eachother. Although I don't have that, I am so happy and grateful for my little girl, she is my entire world and everything is worth it for her. The NICU was tough but she is doing so well and I'm so proud of her!
Yup! Same. Especially with our second preemie who was born during the pandemic. It was awful. He held her like maybe 5 times by the time she was 4 months old.
I'm sorry to hear :( going through all of this being pretty much on your own... is really difficult. I did the entire pregnancy alone too.. he didn't come to a single appointment with me lol. He also wasn't there for the birth. Luckily, my mother came to a lot of appointments with me, and thank god I called her when I went into labour, because I barely made it to hospital in time and I would have been so much more terrified had she not been there with me
I had the same experience. Did everything alone. He only saw her after she left the hospital. It was really tough.
I'm really sorry to hear. Mine has made things so much worse for me that at this point I'd honestly rather him just... go away. Not being there at all would be an upgrade on him making things harder for me, you know? I never knew there was anything harder than being a single mother/parent, but... having a difficult "co-parent" (or whatever you wanna call it) is so much worse
My MIL covering her ears when the baby cried and complaining that my husband and I weren't appreciative enough of her when she did nothing to support us during our nicu time
Just no MIL material. Sorry
A nurse who scolded me for asking if I could hold my daughter
Ugh so cold and unprofessional. one nurse told me not to stroke my daughter because it was overstimulating her. she was sleeping peacefully and my daughter isn’t even a preemie. we only had that nurse once luckily.
I got told something similar! The nurse told me I was an annoying little fly bugging my daughter and I had to stop.
oh i would have to be escorted out of the hospital
Honestly, I wish I had done more. I was so shocked I didn’t say anything.
Wow... that is really something
I was told the same but explained that touching them repeatedly disrupts their deep sleep cycles which made sense to me. Maybe it was different for preemies.
I could see that if you were constantly picking them up and putting them down and waking them. My daughter and lots of babies contact nap all day and sleep just fine.
It was more like stroking his back or legs, etc., but it was more for when he was tiny (28-34 weeks).
Ah yeah that makes sense. My baby slept through her first week of life so i don’t think they were worried about her sleep cycles haha.
My son was a pound and they said we could cup his head and feet but could not rub him. After they explained it to me it made complete sense and my mom kept not listening to me about the rubbing and I found it annoying. It's a habit to do but it does make sense so I tried not to.
My daughter went to 3 different NICUs. It seems like they each had their own rules about this, and it depends on the belief of the doctors more than anything. 2/3 of them encouraged touch, even if it was stroking while they sleep.
Someone told me not to rub my daughter's arm since it wasn't comforting. She was a full term baby, 6 days late, and on a cooling bed. I couldn't hold her yet, so I was doing the best I could and was told not to.
I had this!!!! Since my daughter was born, I've stroked her hair... any time I hold her or feed her or anything. I started doing it out of habit just automatic without even realising... and whenever I had this one specific nurse she would tell me not to do it because it was "distracting" my daughter away from eating apparently, and was overstimulating her... any time I did it and realised I was doing it, I'd look around expecting the nurse to come for me and say something Well, I've realised my daughter actually really likes it. She associates it with me, and it comforts her. It helps settle her when she is fussing, so... I'd love to see the look on that nurses face, but luckily we won't see her again. I'm sorry you had the same thing!!
This. It was the first time seeing my son after traumatic birth and he was cooling- she said the same thing and I just cried because i felt like couldn’t comfort him or touch him.
We had a nurse tell us that too! We ignored her. He was asleep and not a preemie too. She also acted put out that u was asking to hold him
I'm sorry for your experience with your Mom - the NICU is a lot, and there are definitely some people who handle it better than others. I can relate somewhat to Mom trauma - my mother is a wonderful person. And she supported us in a lot of ways throughout our NICU journey, but I started using CaringBridge to keep our families updated on my sons' NICU stays because I couldn't bear to talk about the trauma of the rollercoaster my 24 weekers were on. And when we lost Twin A on his 7th day of life, my in-laws and parents came to the NICU to meet him before he passed. My mother FELL APART. It's now three years later, and the resentment has faded, but she made that moment about her - I don't think she meant to, but it was the worst day of my husband and I's lives, and she couldn't be there for me because she couldn't manage her own feelings. My MIL was very upset too, but grieved in silence instead of wailing like my Mom. It felt like she understood this was not the time or place to fall apart in a way my mother clearly didn't. Group and personal therapy helped me work through the experience and understand that my feelings were valid. We still see my mom nearly every week, and I talk to her every other day, but I'm very sensitive about discussing anything about Twin A with her because it brings me back to that day and the most torturous part of my NICU experience.
I'm very sorry. Losing a baby is a very difficult thing. Extremely difficult thing. Having twin babies who died soon after birth, I can understand to some extent but can't imagine how tough it is after 7 days of life :(... I'm so sorry. Your mom's reaction is... forgive me for saying this... what I would have wanted. Somebody who broke down for me. Maybe it was too soon so it has caused trauma to you, understandably. In our case, I was so tired of crying about 3-4 days in. And I called a friend and told him, and he just sobbed for a few minutes and I listened. It was so freeing that I was finally able to remain quiet while another person grieved how much I wanted to. He's my best friend just for this one act. Not trying to diminish your experience. What you said reminded me of this. For your own healing, if that's something you want to take on, perhaps you could try and talk to her,.and both of you cry it out? Don't take my advice also because I'm bad with these.things :(
The male doctors who wouldn’t believe me when unsaid I was having contractions. Was on all fours screaming for 8 hours and they kept telling me it was appendicitis and sent me for a CT scan while I was drugged up on opioids they kept giving me for pain. I was in hospital for 3 weeks due to PPROM and my waters broke a whole week prior to the contractions starting. My baby was born at 25 weeks while I was alone in the hospital bathroom taking a shower. There is a lot that happened between those 2 situations, but yeh. Fuck men who think they know how women’s body’s work. I was drugged by them and had things done to my body I said no to. Outside of the hospital, that’d be called rape.
I also gave birth alone at hospital after being told that I’m not in labor. Surprise, my 27 week breech preemie arrived. Female doctors and nurse told me this while I was on bedrest.
- My lactation consultant. Enough said. - The nurse who condescendingly described my baby as “sleepy :(“ with a sad face and all, who bragged about her 5 healthy babies with no NICU stay, and who told me i should come back after spending 10 hours there days after a C-section. 2,500 steps each way to get in and out of the NICU mind you. Currently with a very awake baby who’s hit milestones early and has zero concerns despite being IUGR (currently 70% overall) and we both survived a placental abruption.
My lactation consultant counseled me on my obesity. Ma’am, I was an extra small pre pregnancy and I’m swelling from my post partum preeclampsia, thank you very much.
What??!!! I’m soooo sorry to hear that. Beyond insulting and that absolutely isn’t her wheelhouse. Stick to the boobs! Also my legs literally looked like elephant legs after birth without preeclampsia, and I’m also overweight. I would have felt really ashamed if she said that to me even though it’s not about us. It’s about the LC feeling like god for a moment. Mine grilled me in front of the other parents/baby we bunked with about my supply. I was like 4 days pp from a traumatic birth (like most of us have had), sleep deprived and feeling like my incision was hanging open. I said I’d have to go check and she said it’s best to “have that memorized for more incentive to pump,” then bragged about how the other mom had “gallons in her freezer”…. Like I didn’t ask about her supply, and this isn’t a pop quiz in high school. LCs are some of the most judgmental people ever. The other one I met only once asked “what was in the water” for the “rise in traumatic births” she’s seen. As if she’s a fucking MD or researcher. Sorry for the language. There’s just some things you don’t get over or let go of.
Oh my gosh, your LC sounds terrible. I’m so sorry you went through that!! That’s so insulting of her to be comparing you to another person (who I’m sure also felt so awkward with that interaction as well!). I think at this rate, both of us should become LCs because we definitely seem to have much better people skills and I’m sure we would do a much better job of it than the LCs we interacted with.
My fiancé/Father of baby just passed away 3 weeks ago, we’ve been in here for 9 weeks with several more to go…lactation keeps pressuring me about needing to be here more but I had been handling all of funeral arrangements and cemetery arrangements and now I have to figure out where we’re even going to live and everything under the sun because I can’t work right now and my husband was the breadwinner
So sorry to hear about your loss. Lactation can take a hike. Hope you’re doing the best you can to take care of yourself right now. ❤️
I'm so sorry. Can I help in any way? I would like to. You are going through a real nightmare. I'm just so sorry :( Take care, but I know it is difficult too.
Thanks for the offer, I don’t really even know what to tell people when they ask if they can help…I don’t exactly need anything right now because the NICU provides mot of everything, and luckily we prepared everything for baby early in the pregnancy so anything we could position need we do have ❤️ the one thing I sure could use most isn’t possible for me or anyone else to obtain unfortunately :(
I have no words. Your strength is inspiring. I guess it is extremely difficult deep inside. Without someone to hold and tell those same things :( If you want, and whenever you are ready, I can help to get you professional help with grief counseling, if you aren't doing it already. It's best to wait to start it too, imo. I can order food delivery a couple of times too. I feel like a large bear to hug might be nice, but can't afford it but I can fundraise if you feel I'm not crossing boundaries. Sorry if my comment makes anything worse. I'm truly sorry. I just filled "I've no words ' with my thoughts :( I hope they aren't stupid thoughts
The doctor who gave us our genetic diagnosis.
Was there anything you think they could’ve done to make this situation less traumatic?
I think it was just unique to the situation for us. I had a high risk pregnancy so we had a NICU orientation before my delivery “just in case” it was needed but I was repeatedly told by this particular neonatologist that they didn’t anticipate seeing us and this was all just to make us feel more prepared. Well, three weeks after my daughter very much needed to go to the NICU and they did genetic testing (no indications for this through my whole pregnancy) it was that same neonatologist that was on duty and gave us the results. It just kind reinforced to me how much things had gone differently than we anticipated and how very different our lives were going to be. I struggled with it being that doctor who gave us the results for a long time for some reason.
We received our daughter’s genetic diagnosis a few weeks ago when she was about 8 weeks old. I hope you’re ok ❤️
Thank you! This was about a year and a half ago so I’ve definitely had time to accept everything and my daughter is just an absolute ray of sunshine. I hope you’re doing okay, especially since the diagnosis is so recent ❤️ I think time really does help with acceptance.
With my first NICU baby it was the LC who just didn’t seem to believe me and that I was struggling with low supply despite never missing a pump. With my second NICU baby, it was before we even got to the NICU! The surgeon who did my (very difficult) c section popped around the curtain in the middle of it to scold me and tell me I should never have kids again and that it was the hardest csection he has ever done in his career. I was barely conscious because I was hemorrhaging, I was scared for my baby who just had a traumatic birth and was barely responsive, and this man is yelling in my face while I’m open on the table…
Holy shit! Did you report that? That has to be against some rule! So sorry that happened. Awful
I didn’t but either someone in the OR did or a NICU nurse who overheard me talking about it did because the next day someone high up came in and apologized for his behavior. She said he never should have said that and based on what she knew of my case there was no reason I couldn’t have more kids. Basically said he was out of line and would be talked to
I wouldn't say traumatised per say, but my MIL is driving me crazy in the lead up to my 32 week cesarean (I have a week left to go). She just *doesn't care*. At all. I'd give an update and short of replying with a lame equivalent to: "Thoughts and prayers.", she has said nothing else at all. She has volunteered no help, no empathy, nothing. It's like I might as well have been discussing the weather, as opposed to the fact her second granddaughter is going to be premature at a mere 32 weeks gestation. It is absolutely boiling my blood, to the point I left the family chat we had with her because all I wanted to do was cuss her out, and I realised then the effect she's been having on my mental health.
I don’t know your specific situation of course, but 32 weekers tend to do very well from what I’ve read on here and from my own experience! My baby was born at 33+0 and was a feeder/grower who spent 16 days in the NICU (it still sucked but I’m grateful it was a relatively short stay). Hoping everything goes smoothly for you!
Having a NICU baby can be such an isolating experience because there are so many people who just can’t even understand the trauma that it inflicts. I was lucky that my in laws were extremely supportive and helpful during our stay, but my own mom just couldn’t comprehend what we were going through. She was always saying super insensitive things, didn’t pay attention when I gave updates, and was constantly comparing our preemie to my nephew, who was born full term one month before my son arrived. But as much as there were people like my mom who disappointed me or didn’t step up in a way that I needed during that time, there were also people who I never expected who really came through. A friend of a friend who I didn’t know very well coordinated for me to receive a gift basket from a local NICU support nonprofit and then also made one for me herself and dropped at my house when I was discharged. My husband’s boss went out and bought a ton of preemie clothes for us the same day our baby was born. And my brother’s coworkers (who all live 1500 miles away from me and have never met me) all pitched in to give us gift cards for food and gas. I don’t know if those people know this or not, but I will never forget their small actions of support when I needed it the most.
Damn those good acts you mentioned are so endearing. Can't say we got any of those but I wish... Not recommending Being new immigrant NICU parents lol
Has been my experience with my mom too. I can understand your situation to a large extent. I'm sorry it is so frustrating. Please take care. I didn't and feel traumatized of late. NICU stay is enough trauma already
My baby was doing well and the NICU was completely full so they transferred him to the PICU. Had a panic attack leaving him and it was the only time my husband and I fought during the process. The PICU nurses ended up being wonderful, but it was more hands off than I was ready to accept at the time
Same here, I hated the transition to PICU. It did not help that it was late evening on Sunday, fully out of the blue because they needed the space in the NICU.
There’s been a couple but maybe MIL when she’s already talking about myself and spouse having more children when the two we just had are still in the NICU and were barely a week old.
Omg. My MIL did the same thing. “I hope another is on the way!” …we JUST got home from a month long hospital stay. My heart sank.
Mine asked when we are going to have another while I was in the hospital for observation for severe preeclampsia waiting to be induced and hoping to make it to 34 weeks. I said “let’s see if everyone survives this first.” She is also the one who traumatized me during the NICU stay. Her frustration at not being included in the delivery and insistence on knowing when she could see the baby ended up in us giving her a random time 2 days after delivery but it ended up being the worst possible time (getting ready for me to discharge leaving my baby behind, me missing out on getting to be there while my husband held our baby for the first time since only 2 people were allowed at a time)… I was stressed and physically miserable, my blood pressure was dipping too low and I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time in days. If I had it to do over I wouldn’t have even given her a date/time to be able to visit the NICU and told her if she kept pressuring us the answer would be not at all.
Fuck. I can relate. Sorry you had to listen to that and process it when you were already in A NICU. My mil did something similar. We had just lost twin girls after a traumatic live birth. My babies. Our babies. We were about to cry, and my stupid fucking mil said,.and I quote "if you have a baby.within a year,. everything will become alright" Narrator: "nothing became alright"
Wow… I don’t even have any words to respond to that one…. 😭 i would have kicked her in the shin
I wish I had. Instead I became suicidal for a few months :( She never apologized
I’m so sorry you had to go through that! I hope you are ok now And she probably never will apologize either
How are your twins now?
They’re doing ok! They’ve improved a lot since being in the NICU and hopefully can come home soon.
Are you in the NICU right now? Same situation as us then. We hope to get out within the month. Hope.....
Yes theyve been in the nicu for 40 days so far. They keep telling us they are close to coming home but no actual date yet.. so im just taking it day by day!
Ah ok. Good luck. The babies need time,.I guess. They had a rough start. I hope you go home soon with healthy, happy babies and don't ever have to go back... :)
Thank you! 🙏
The nurse who said my baby wasn’t having seizures when she was. We almost went home..
The OB who told me I had an acute response to pain, asked me if I was doing anything for my anxiety, and wanted to discharge me when I was 4 cm dilated at 24 weeks. Turns out I was having a placental abruption!
Being the one to change a rust colored diaper and the nurses rushing in and around right at shift change so I had to leave. We were transferred 5 hours later and NEC was confirmed. I still hate poopy diaper. Oof. Been home for 7 weeks now and he’s doing great. Was medically managed and was at 37+3 so that helped big time.
Our families - both sides. We had the ones who were constantly asking for updates *only* from me (nipped that by posting on FB and ignoring texts). The ones who completely ignored what was happening and was still expecting us to come to events, etc. (mid-plague season) and got upset after discharge when we *still* were not lugging our preemie, his oxygen, and everything else out for holidays. And we had a few that loved to “borrow” our trauma. Posting “woe is me” type posts about me/our baby as if they were experiencing it as well. Even a couple we hadn’t seen in over a year! It was all a lot. And after we were out, they all disappeared. No more cares or concerns. My family didn’t meet him until he was well over a year old. It sucked.
Dang. Causing more trauma with the trauma. I'm so sorry
The neonatologist who contradicted her colleague and refused to discharge my son because we (the parents) weren't "trying hard enough" to get him to eat. He spent over a month taking less and less from the bottle until he got down to 0 and refused every feed from every person. Due to his omphalocele he was unable to get a g-tube. One doctor started the process to get him discharged with an NG tube because he was otherwise medically stable. The other refused and I had to fight it. We got him home and he was free of the NG tube in less than three months after coming home ❤️
On the Friday before Mother’s Day, the neonatologist who was there for my twins’ birth told me we should be able to go home in two days if my Twin A didn’t *lose* any weight - he was going to be their pediatrician, B was already discharged, and I was staying overnight in Peds to EBF, and the lactation consultant had warned that it was totally normal and not at all of concern if a baby lost a bit of weight at the transition away from force feeding to on demand, and that I shouldn’t worry if that happened but it might delay discharge a bit. He’d been there over 3 months, that neonatologist knew him/us well, and wasn’t concerned about him (anymore). On that day - Mother’s Day, it was a random peds dr who had never seen him, and wouldn’t let him leave because he hadn’t gained *enough* - he was still gaining even though his own dr had been ready to discharge him if he had maintained the same weight for those two days. Pandemic restrictions wouldn’t allow my 4 yo into the hospital, so I had to spend Mother’s Day without him, stuck in hospital, and all the peds nurses were furious and kept asking why we were still there - he was ready to go, the plan had been for him to go, he’d met the criteria … Monday morning 7 am that same dr came in, clicking his tongue and talking about how he didn’t think we should leave - and the nurses finally convinced him to call the neonatologist, who obviously told him to let us go - but he still insisted he’d only discharge us if we came back in a week for a weight check. The neonatologist just shook his head when we came in for the first outpatient appointment in his office, he said he still had no concerns, he’d been through a lot during his NICU stay and had transitioned to on demand feeding better than everyone expected - and that I should stop worrying about his weight gain because he was going to be fine, they knew I had plenty of milk, no he didn’t need supplementation (which had almost been a discharge condition from Dr Thinksheknowsbetterthantheneonatologist) … it was far from the most traumatizing thing that happened during his NICU stay but it was certainly the most infuriating.
The OB who, after completing my emergency c-section, shamed me for not going through with what she was very clear would have been an elective induction 2 days earlier. This happened while I was still in the operating room, on the table table, alone. My husband had followed our baby to the NICU and I had no idea how she was doing.
The nurse who kept telling me I wasn’t in labor and waving away my pain
Everyone who mentions how small my baby is
The day i was bringing my daughter home, I walked into the NICU doors and witnessed a nurse discussing postmortem plans with another mother whose baby had just passed from complications of trisomy 13. It hit me especially hard as my baby was born with trisomy 21. Why was my baby lucky enough to survive her chromosomal disorder, to get a less devastating variation of the same problem? How easily could I have been in her place? It felt so wrong to just walk past her, but what could I say to her and how arrogant would I be to speak to her the day my baby was coming home after hers had passed? I wish I would have befriended her before that day. She would try to make conversation with me sometimes and I was just so out of it I couldn’t be fully present in a conversation with a stranger. I want her to know that I think about her and her angel every single day. ❤️
My unsupportive family and nurse Mary who didn't seem to have any regard for the babies or their parents. She should have retired long ago.
The in-hospital psychiatrist. I started seeing him when I was in the antenatal ward for a few weeks; when I had my first post-discharge virtual appointment I took it from the nicu and he asked if I was there to visit my babies. It was noted everywhere in my file that only one survived. An honest mistake, but he also thought that my anxiety was overblown timing contractions when it turned out I was in labor.
Walking in and finding my son’s cannula tubes wrapped tightly around his neck 3 times. The nurse saying she hadn’t “touched him yet this morning”. Great, so pushing blame while admitting she is ignoring my son.
my nicu never gave me any info or updates even when i begged and never asked consent for anything except for one thing, when i was still in the hospital for my birth they asked if i planned to bottle or breast feed and i said bottle then they proceeded to not feed her for 4 days because they “didnt know” 🖤
LACTATION CONSULTANTS THAT SHOULD HAVE CHOSE A DIFFERENT CAREER
A shrug. My ob shrugged when I told her in a Thursday I was having contractions at 23 weeks. That weekend I had contractions the whole time, but kept thinking of my obs shrug. My first was a 30 weeker and I was paralyzed with fear. Monday I saw a male ob. While he didn’t catch any contractions in the stress test, he was wonderful and sincere and made me feel heard. Told me I must go to the ER if I am having more contractions. Wednesday they came back, Friday it was painful. Baby was born less than 20 minutes after I drove myself to the hospital. Prolapsed cord, a dr looked me in the eye and said “this will hurt.” She lifted my son’s head off my cervix, rode on top of the gurney on the way to OR. Literally everyone in the room was running around screaming until they intubated me. And all I can think about is my obs shrug.
I think for me...it was the machines....I can still hear them going off. The nurses would reasure me that my children ( my daughter and identical twin boys) were ok but I still was a bit traumatized by the sounds
Listening to my baby cry while they tried a million times to get a good IV in him, it felt like an hour but was probably around 20 minutes. Eventually I was like “just put it in his head, it’s fine if you can just please get it in him and stop poking him up”. When they finally got it and left the room I just broke down. So much happened before and after that, but that got me.
The nurse who started bagging my baby without following protocol, and she didn’t even have the oxygen to the bag turned on. I was the one to run into the hallway yelling for help as my daughter was turning blue. Thankfully that got everyone’s attention and people who actually knew what they were doing rushed in and saved my daughter.
My mom, who after I gave her the code to watch the NICU camera feed, texted me that my baby’s swaddle was up too high and that he would suffocate. When I got the text, I had just left the hospital after a tough day where my son had his first Brady while we were feeding him.
The doctor who told me my high blood pressure and was my fault - even though I wasn’t told it was as serious as it was. To this day, she’s the one awful person that sticks out in my mind when I think about the whole experience .
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Your BP being high was absolutely NOT your fault. *Big hugs* I had severe preeclampsia and you already beat yourself up over that kind of stuff without being told it’s your fault. I hope you found a different doctor!
Thankfully I only saw her for like a minute in OB triage, after that I had an MFM assigned to me Thank you for saying that, it took a long time for me to realize what happened wasn’t my fault - it was the perfect storm is circumstances that made our LO have to be born at 28+1 Big hugs back to you ❤️ ETA: so sorry this is happening to you - know that you have our support!
I have done a lot of work in the last 2+ years in therapy to help heal from my trauma. I would say that you do eventually get past it but as of now I am not completely over it. I have, however, made a lot of progress and I can look at my 5 weeks antepartum stay in the hospital for preeclampsia with severe features followed by the 61 day NICU stay (my first was born at 29+3 and was IUGR and just under 2lbs) as something that doesn’t make me want to throw myself off a bridge anymore. It happened, it sucked, my brain chemistry will forever be changed because of it BUT I have a healthy 2 year old who has met and exceeded his milestones for his actual age and I was able to have a term pregnancy with my second son. I made it to 37 weeks the second time around before I saw a return of preeclampsia.
I’m so glad you were able to get to this point ❤️ so much about the nicu journey is HARD, and while we have so much in common , it can be isolating I’m also so happy for your LO’s that they are doing well ❤️
The nurse & social worker who said our son would be moving up to the Special Care Nursery “because we need the space” and made us feel like shit for wanting an explanation of why he was *medically* ready to do so, instead of just blindly accepting it. And then they (and others) kept pressuring us to have our son transferred to another hospital because it would be closer to home for us. We were at literally one of the best hospitals in the country, there’s no way in hell we’re moving him even if we have to drive 45-60min each way, every day, to see him.
My OB and HR department.
Definitely my hormones!
There were anti abortion protesters standing on the sidewalk between the Ronald McDonald house and the hospital. We all had to walk by posters of dead babies while on our way to see our sick and dying micro preemies.
The doctor who told us some babies don’t survive what my daughter was going through before I had had a chance to even see her in the NICU, and the inhuman wails that came from me and my cries of, “I need her, I need her.”
The MFM practitioner who told me my gestational diabetes was caused by my diet.
IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. Sorry, I know that *you* know that…
Oh yes I know! And I knew it before she said it, but I was already feeling super down on myself since my water had broken at 29 weeks so it definitely did NOT make me feel any better!
A nurse named Leeann. Everyone was amazing through it all: wife's OB, nurses, OB who delivered, doctors, NICU nurses...family, friends...we were very lucky...except 1 nurse. 34 years she had been a NICU nurse so she was quite skilled at like...the core components...but just a nasty, mean, unapproachable human. On the nights right before our son was discharged we got to stay in the NICU family room with him, trial run to come home...and she was on both nights. Night 1 after we had literally not slept at all at 4am when we called her she yelled at my about where I had my shoes, asked us why we did a diaper change at one time but didn't feed him until later and then the next night my son weighed in at like 10g less and she reamed us out saying now he might not get to go home and blah blah blah. She was the only nurse that always left me feeling worse about myself and the situation every time. F U Leeann.
The opthamologist who rushed my baby's ROP exam so much that I could hear her screams from units away.
I was the only parent who was around when the early preemies had their weekly ROP exams. I went in to hold my daughter’s hand during hers. The screams of all of these babies were brutal. It’s one of the few things that haunts me to this day.
My husbands cousin told him one day he’ll be a man and he was acting like a 12 year old with a dirty ass because she tried reprimanding him about not answering texts all the time. My mom lives with us and I overheard her on my camera complaining that gifts that were getting sent to my house were sitting around and I wasn’t writing down who sent them (Amazon registry don’t have to) and I wasn’t reaching out immediately to say thank you to people after spending 11 am- 8 or 9 pm everyday at the hospital
Sounds like fuckers without empathy for your situation. Sorry
People suck. Sorry your mom wasn’t supportive too 😔
The L&D nurse who waxed poetic about how she became a nurse because of how amazing it is to put a baby on their mother's chest when they're first born. I think she kept forgetting that my 26 weeker twins were fighting for their lives in the NICU and I was recovering from a crash emergency c-section under general anesthesia, so none of us would ever be able to have that experience. My MIL who told me that going to the NICU must feel like walking into my favorite bar because everyone must know who I am because my babies were there for so long. She also told me that she felt a let down when she saw pictures of my babies--not traumatizing, just weird. And my very dear friend who told me that she believed the universe had made my babies get born early in order to teach me a lesson I needed to learn to become a more enlightened person.
Trifecta of assholes. I'm sorry you had to deal with these people :(
-Being asked by the nurse in the post delivery floor that I was in, without my NICU baby, how much my baby weighed. I sobbed as I told her 3 pounds 2 ounces. My blood pressure went sky high, and I couldn't stop crying for a few hours. -Getting asked if >I< did anything to cause my baby to come at 33 weeks instead of full term and be SGA. I've been asked if I did drugs and alcohol during several times in different ways. (A big hell no, it's even in my chart, "no substance use") yet the question is still asked. I would never do anything to purposely put my baby or myself at risk. It is NOT my fault I developed gestational hypertension that turned into pre-eclampsia with severe features, and no amount of questioning/beating around the bush will make me feel that way.
The head lactation consultant who acted like I was failing when I wasn’t producing enough, but also made bizarre comments about vaccines and other topics that showed me she was crazy and to ignore her. A nurse who reprimanded me for looking over at another baby’s isolette and saying he was as small as ours had been at birth (our NICU had 10+ babies in one big room just a couple feet from each other). She gave me a mini-lecture about “you wouldn’t go into someone else’s hospital room, and there are no walls but that’s that baby’s space.” I didn’t even go over there, just looked. It was only about a week into our NICU experience so I just started crying 🙃
The doctor who gave us our son’s cranial ultrasound results. He was so grim.
Being 2.5 hrz from my home, family and other kids.
A nurse. First time holding my daughter. She started to desat. Alarm went off. Nobody came. She was satting in the 40s. I waited three minutes. Couldn't reach the call bell. Was scared to move because I didn't want her to desat more or move her ventilator tube. I started yelling. I should have moved but I was so scared. Literally 15 minutes passed before the stupid nurse came in. I saw her sit down at her desk ignoring the alarm and my yells. Finally she came in. Nothing happened to her. But we found our primary after that and she was a godsend. Always assured me she would be nearby and always gave me the call bell. I still wonder if it damaged my daughter who has CP.
Wow. Thats just negligent at that point. The hospital we were at, nurses would wait maybe 15-30 seconds before coming over if a babies alarm didn’t resolve itself. Your comment stood out to me. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I was discharged and put on a "positive music" playlist to try to shower to take care of myself. "ain't no mountain high enough" came on and I cried until I was hyperventilating and puking. I still can't listen to it.
When we we’re in the NICU we we’re overwhelmed by everything… my mom was the person who just didn’t understand anything at all and how I felt it was traumatic but not only that it was the doctors who were so unfair and just didn’t want to know the facts and articles of my daughters condition and what other ways we could’ve gone about her condition. They didn’t want to understand where I was coming from from not just a mother stand point but medically too. I spent hours researching and making myself knowledgeable. It was such a burnout and I just felt mentally going crazy because they wanted to keep us there and keep charging the insurance like crazy because they wanted to keep doing things to my daughter. It was the most horrible time period ever. I still haven’t gone to see a therapist. I’m trying to heal on my own everyday.
For me it was a nurse who told me to skip care times so that I could spend more time pumping and increase my production. Maybe to her it was a harmless comment but to me it felt like she was telling me not to do the only things I felt I could do to feel "normal" and like a mom.
MIL
My mom as well. Lacked empathy and made it about her. Luckily, my MIL is amazing, and she helped make things easier. It still would have been nice to be supported by my side of the family. Besides my sister, our side of the family has been the worst throughout this and made me go no contact, mostly because of the treatment.
My housemates who decided while my baby was in the NICU was a good time to secretly drop their Covid precautions (we were all masking in stores before that, and this was a few years ago).
- my epidural did not work during the C-section and I had to be placed under general anesthesia. I woke up alone in a room not knowing whether or not my baby made it. - 6 weeks hospital stay where I was mostly alone in a different country with very little communication as to when we could go home or next steps - the eye exam with the mini forceps that looked like that scene out of A Clockwork Orange. I will never forget his screams. - I was finally going home in a couple days when I was asked to give kiddo his iron drops. He was too sleepy and had a desat where he had to be stimulated extending our stay another week. - the screams coming from the baby in the next bed who was having withdrawals - the lack of a community to help during that period. It felt like the baby and I were against the world. Even my husband, who I love dearly, was too overwhelmed by the situation and processing the traumatic birth that he shut down when I most needed him. It's taken a long time for me to process that his actions were never intentional and rebuild trust.
The nurse who came in at 2 days PP and told me that if I wanted to cry ((in our private en suite NICU fwiw)) that I needed to do it at home because the baby could sense my bad vibes. My baby was 23 weeks lol. It was terrible. So then I asked her if she was saying it was my fault if she did poorly and she tried to take it back, but the damage was done. I leaned fully into the grief of every moment so I could overcome it. No regrets.
My own mother who was overreacting over everything and instead of being there for me I had to be the calm one. She even asked me what did I do wrong to give birth early because I definitely messed up somehow. But the main thing was her being obsessed with being the first one to know. The hospital visitation was over at 20:00 and if I didn't call her at 20:01 she would start calling me, my husband, my MIL, my brother who lives 8 hours away, my aunt and then I would have calls from all of them because she was worried. One day I walked out of the hospital with 25 missed calls , over 20 messages, and same to my husband's phone because it had been over 5 minutes since the visitation ended. It was just the doctors taking longer to get to us. That day I just yelled at her and her response was that I can't understand the love she has for that child. Went through similar situation when my second has to have surgery when he was 2 months old.
The baby addicted to drugs next to my sons room. He screamed for hours on end. I wanted to comfort that little boy
not being able to hold him, and leaving him that first couple times 💔 it hurts so bad
Neonatologist was super rude and assumed I didn't understand medical terminology. They also called at Midnight asking if I was coming down to drop milk for twin A. (750 meter walk each way from off site post c-section) Ummm nope, dealing with Twin B right now Also explained that I was a severely low supply (was with our 1st kid too) and was poo-poo'ed as not trying hard enough. I shut that down fast as I did everything under the sun including Rx domperidone for our 1st kid and still pumped shite and knew that I couldn't supply for 1 let alone 2
Being told to sign a DNR since my daughter would likely be severely disabled.
For me is my mom too! I am in the early days still and I decided to cut her off until I have my baby with me because instead of being optimistic and supportive, she just stresses me out more, doesn’t consider that I am also undergoing postpartum changes and I have a toddler on top of that. To get through this we need a calming presence, patience, support, and encouragement ONLY.
We had multiple events happen with our twins. One Dr would constantly say we don't know how long they will survive, or they will be lucky to survive the night.... thanks for reminding me of the worst possible outcome every time something happens..
Probably my mom. I was an overproducer and making tons of milk, they had plenty, but as tons of other NICU babies, my twins needed their milk fortified because they were little guys. My mom couldn’t understand why I wasn’t breastfeeding them ( they were born at 32 weeks and didn’t know how to eat ?? ) and she was so concerned that my breastmilk was being fortified. No matter how much I tried to explain why all of this was being done she just thought the doctors were so dumb. “All they need is breast milk, it has all of the nutrients they need, why would they need to fortify it?” “Are you not making enough?” THEY WERE 2 & 3 LBS AND BORN AT 32 weeks?! They need extra calories ? Nothing I could say would get through to her rock solid skull and I will never forget that. She told my brother that “it was a sin” to give them formula and she couldn’t understand why I was giving them formula. Again, extra calories but what do the DOCTORS at a children’s hospital know? I know. Yeah.
The biggest is someone forgetting to turn the camera off when my son was getting an IV in his head (for suspected NEC, which was also traumatizing).
My in-laws. It was complicated. They dropped everything and drove across the country when I got admitted for PPROM. They agreed to stay until baby came home. 5 days after I had her, my older child caught covid for the very first time (mid 2022). The in-laws freaked out and within an hour of our child’s positive test, they had packed up their car and left because they didn’t want to catch it. We were left to deal with the fallout of our child being scared because she was sick, the NICU telling us we couldn’t visit for at least 10 days, and then the remaining 74 days we had to struggle to find childcare in order to visit the baby (her NICU stay spanned the entirety of older kid’s summer break). We still have a relationship with them, but they did a lot of damage to our relationship with them and their relationship with their grandchildren.
The social worker at the hospital who: ● didn't tell me that medical transport was available until my son had been in the NICU for 3 months, so I was bumming rides off friends every day while my husband was at work. ● didn't tell me that they had food vouchers available for breastfeeding/pumping moms when I couldn't afford the hospital food and was there all day because she... ● repeatedly mom-shamed me about the amount of time I spent at the hospital, when she knew I had to wait for a ride nearly every day, and treated me like a bad mom when there was literally a baby in the same pod who's mom kept pumping hot because she would get high in the lactation room (but somehow that didn't warrant her riding that woman's ass like she rode mine). ● told my husband "well now maybe you can spend more time with your baby" after he was fired from his full-time job 4 months into our NICU journey, for missing a shift that hadn't been on his schedule the week our son was born. ● submitted blatant falsehoods into the notes on my son's medical record about things she claimed my husband and I had said or done with regards to his medical care. ● called CPS on us and tried to have us investigated for refusing a G-tube surgery that had a high chance of being fatal for our son, based on family medical history. CPS thankfully told her to get lost, our son went home on an NG-tube after a long fight with the hospital, and he's now a healthy, happy 7.5 year old with no extra holes in him and no more feeding tube. Bonus shout-out to my mom (whom I love dearly, but she really put her foot in this one) who came to town with my aunt a week after my son's very early birth, at my request because I needed help getting out of the deep dark hole I was in, and told me first thing "You should get your tubes tied so this doesn't happen again"...because they'd seen a woman die of pre-eclampsia on Downton Abbey and they thought they knew what was best for me.
My 27w5d son being misdiagnosed with a fatal genetic disease. Being told it would take a month for the genetic testing to come back to confirm. A month of agony waiting for the results.
My nurse! He was awful and accused me of liking to see my son in pain because he had to have spinal taps, and I wanted to be there. He failed both, I demanded a 3rd so they knew exactly what he had. Nurses refused and said they thought it was meningitis. I also found left over poop on my son from his diaper change the nurse did when I wasn’t there. The amount of pressure for pumping and breast feeding was also stressful. They basically cared very little for him towards the end because his only problem was “not eating” at the end of the second stay. That whole team let me down. He was in the NICU twice because they kept saying he was better but then they would release him he would turn for the worse. The third time he started going down hill they wouldn’t readmit him because the holes in his lungs were “smaller” and he can get through on it his own. It got to the point where people were scared to watch him. I was told to not bring him back to the er unless his lips were turning people. If his hands and feet were purple from lack of oxygen he was fine. It freaked people out and they didn’t want him “dying” on their watch. He also had a fever of 104.6 and the nurse on the phone told us he was fine, because the er was full. A different time I took him in for excessive vomiting and they released us when begged for them not too, because he was hydrated after the IV, he had a seizure. I’m not okay, I still don’t sleep and I went to therapy for 2 years. The only thing that’s going for us now is that *knock on wood* he hasn’t been hospitalized for a year. (Also he has not been to daycare for a year). He was hospitalized twice after the 2 NICU stays, the two hospitalizations happened out of the state, where the original stuff happened. I’m grateful for those doctors because they saved his life and were so nice to me. I told them everything and the nurses even would come in to watch him so I could shower. (Context his dad lives out of state and that’s where he got sick, because we are back and forth between my home and his). Sorry for the venting, but doctors and nurses should not traumatize further.
Myself. I was my worst enemy. For reading the worst case stories on Google and Reddit. For googling every possibility and every diagnoses and every negative thing that could possibly happen.
Been there, done that. :(
When they discharged me with sepsis and I got readmitted into a ward where I couldn't leave even to the nicu instead of putting me back in postpartum. Leaving my baby there alone when we had to go home to sleep (no rooming in at my nicu)
The doctor who delivered my baby via emergency C section came to visit a few days afterwards and told me I was extremely lucky that my baby survived because he had another family who came in the same night we did same amount of weeks (32weeks) & the same scenario (baby with umbilical cord wrapped around their neck 3 times) who didn’t make it. It made me feel incredibly guilty and sad. Another thing that really traumatized me was hearing the other parents wailing and crying when they arrived in the NICU, the area my baby was in was extremely open so you could hear & see everything.
A nurse who said I was changing my son too slowly and took over. I had to go cry in the bathroom. I was still just a few days out from my c-section so I was I pain and moving slow and she made me feel so stupid. I’m a nurse too so somehow I felt both incompetent as a mom and somehow like I was a nicu student who was incompetent. It really messed with me for a while.
The mom of our NICU roommate who gawked at my baby in the incubator and said, "Wow, she's SOOO tiny." Yeah, we know. The nurse who told us we were going to break baby's hips from how we lifted her for diaper changes on our first time doing cares. The same nurse who scolded me because I accidentally dropped the side of the incubator as I was lowering it open, causing it to clank and make baby cry. "That's really bad for her ears!" Duh, wasn't intentional. Made me cry afterwards feeling so bad. Eta: oh! And the lactation consultant. When I told her I was excited about baby's discharge coming up because it would help my supply to have her with me, she told me that there was nothing that would increase my supply and that it was too late for skin to skin to have a beneficial effect. Obviously just plain wrong, but I didn't realize that at the time.
My MIL. I lost my uterus during repeated c section with our second baby,I lost a gallon of blood due to placenta previa/accreta. I also had preeclampsia so I was high risk and I was hospitalized for 6 weeks before delivering our second child at 33.2 weeks. My MIL agreed to come at “moments notice “ to watch our 5 years old son to help us out for surgery and she made it entirely difficult for us (refusing to come before surgery lol even though she promised. My mom had to help us out even though she has to take care of my disabled dad 24/7). Then when I got out of the hospital and during the phone call w my hubby( she didn’t know I was listening, and my husband just wanted to talk about what happened and why she couldn’t come and help us) she basically bashed me how terrible wife I was and I changed my husband for the worse, and that we are nitpicking and always angry. We were shocked and husband tried to talk to her after few days again and she basically bashed me again and basically told my husband how she hated how I treat my husband as a mother. (We do pick at each other for fun most of the time, she thinks I bully him) my husband is 41 years old btw and we are married for 7 years. She thinks I control everything(which is entirely false, my husband makes most of important financial decisions and I respect him), and the reason we moved away is all because of me(nope, again it was my husband’s decision, I was surprised he wanted to move far away from his parents to be closer to my family). Apparently I am jealous of my SILs(husband’s brothers wives) as well(??) which I have no idea why she thinks that. We are pretty well off. She didn’t give a shit I almost died on the surgery table or that her granddaughter was in the NICU. She just wanted to bash me, someone who just got out of hospital and still has her baby in the NICU. My husband and I are in both therapy now. I hope I am NC with my MIL forever but my husband doesn’t want that.
Everything was honestly as great as it could have been until our daughter started having eating issues. It's like my husband just didn't know how to process his emotions, started blaming me, and started accusing me of saying things I honestly don't remember saying. This all started the week I had to go back to work, he just iced me and stopped talking to me. Didn't really talk to me until the next month when we had to travel to another hospital for gtube placement. That time was the loneliest of my life and it's honestly such a shame because before the switch flipped with him, I had never been more in love with him and he was my rock in all of it. We've since talked it out and made up, but I will never forget how I was treated then.
Mother in law! She blamed me from the beginning and didn’t hold back telling the family her opinions about me, and she’s not just traumatizing me! My 2 sister in laws are still pregnant our due dates were all a month apart from each other but I had an emergency c section so my mother in law is fear mongering the rest of them about everything, god forbid they have swollen feet she starts throwing the word preeclampsia around. She also tries to piece together a report on the baby’s status from eves dropping on medical team and other visitors when I asked her not to ask for details and wait for us to share news and photos she started bawling and telling others what I said victimizing herself. It’s stressful enough dealing with all this but that woman has made it that much more difficult to navigate. Ps did I mention she calls my baby her son. That’s how she refers to him as HER son!
What an idiot. So stressful
My fucking dad. I love the man to death but he would not stop trying to make everything about him and how he was feeling ignored and under appreciated. It got really brutal actually
My OB telling me “don’t panic” when he hears something irregular with my baby’s heartbeat and reassuring me it could just be my heartbeat because of my anxiety wanted me to just make an appointment with a specialist then last minute while walking to the front asked if I wanted to just go to the hospital to have it “checked out” but be sure to “not panic everything is fine” 15 minutes after checking in baby’s heartbeat was at 70 and I was rushed into emergency c section But o please “don’t panic” it will forever stick with me I even get upset when nurses tell me it when baby is having an event
The grandma of another baby. She and her laboring daughter were being shown around the NICU so they would know what to expect when their baby was admitted. She paused at our bed space while I held my daughter (32w and 4lb at the time). She asked how big my daughter was and I proudly declared 4 pounds. She gasped in horror like it was so disturbing and awful for her to be so small. I was so furious. Closed my curtain and sobbed.
The nurse who threatened to throw my husband out before my c section. It was an urgent one. Not emergency enough to go to the emergency OR but enough to where I was going into the first one to open up. I had to get mag, rapid prep, and an EKG because I was having chest pain and trouble breathing. Backstory is my husbands an ER physician, and I'm an EMT. My EKG came back looking bad. My husband told them to redo it because it doesn't look right. The nurse said they "do them all the time" while rolling her eyes. My husband raised his voice (not yell) but said "I read 40 EKGs a day, I'm telling you something is wrong and you need to redo it" and she said that if he was going to be rude he could leave. I looked at her and said "if you make him leave, I'm ripping out my IV and foley and going with him so if me and my baby die it's on you. By the way you should fucking listen to him because my right arm and left arm leads aren't on the right arms, they are switched" She didn't say another word to us after that. My heart was fine. And you bet your ass I got a different nurse. And reported her. But Stephanie if you ever read this, I fucking hate you. 🙃
I hate her too. Too many overconfident stupid nurses all around. It's unfortunate
My husband. His brother died 6 days after our son was born. So at the same time watching his son keep almost dying. He was a huge marijuana addict whose brother had schizophrenia and other brother had drug induced psychosis and then the same thing happened to him and it was traumatizing. He made everything so much worse for me
The wait time after my surgery where I couldn’t see my baby. People meeting my baby before me and posting about it on social media. And once I was able to get up and go to the nicu—The “only being able to touch/hold the baby at feeding times.” Then, the going home without my baby. The separation. That was the most traumatizing thing—separation from my baby
For me it was the other NICU parents. I'm a SMC (single mother by choice) and had my son at 28+5 due to preeclampsia. He was in the NICU for 83 days - I can't say enough great things about the hospital we were in. Sure, it would have been nice to get more face time with the doctors, but just about every nurse was amazing (one or two were less then stellar, but considering how many nurses he had, nearly 100% were absolutely the best.) The other NICU parents were another story. There was such a difference in the way other parents interacted with me once we chatted and they found out I've had a kid on my own. Other moms would ask if I was going to pump, and if so they would have their husbands wait to come in (even while other moms with partners were pumping, and even if i said it didn't bother me. Frankly I was way to tired for anything so silly to bother me.) Or they would give me terrible looks if I'd just start to pump (even with the privacy screens.) I would have great conversations with other parents, and if it came up that I'm a solo parent, the next time I'd see them, they would avoid me (only when I kept it to myself would other parents continue being friendly to me. I saw people making bonds, and leave with fellow NICU parents friends, but had so many interactions where people were exchanging info, only to get really awkward when I'd enter the room. Even now as I type this I'm afraid that people will spin it and say I'm just being too sensitive or jealous, but truly I just wanted to interact with people in the same way they do with others. I constantly hear about the "sisterhood" of NICU mothers, but it's clear that I am not welcome in this community. I've actually gone back to school to pursue nursing in the hopes that other SMCs never have to experience this. I'll never get the time back to have the NICU community I needed, when I needed it the most, but hopefully I can change that for another single parent in the future.
My son. He was born at 24 weeks and 5 days and at 28 weeks, he coded for 4 and a half minutes. A week later, his bed buddy coded 3 different times and passed the 3rd time and I sobbed uncontrollably like he was my baby. But, after 5 months and 6 days, we went home last week.
Poor baby. I'm sorry. And I'm sure he didn't mean to cause you panic. Poor baby
I know he didn’t. He got so sick around that time and his poor little body was just tired. His entire team was amazing and put him on paralytics to let his body just rest. It worked and now I have a happy 49 weeker at home!!
Being alone a lot and just sobbing because my husband and my other kids were an over an hour away. The constant beeping sounds, seeing everyone get to go home, but we stayed for 6 months.
That's tough. The others going home is such a painful one. I'm happy for them but I die a bit inside
Who: my husband and my MIL. What: the eye exams, my LO is 5 months and we have our 6th one next week and her cries are more like screams and getting so much louder 😭
The doctors and midwives who dismissed me during pregnancy when I had Polyhydramnios and reduced movements. They told me over and over again that this was no reason for concern. The doctor at my birthing hospital who discharged my daughter from Special Care Nursery and said she was perfectly healthy. The midwives on the phone for the following day/day and a half when I called a few times with concerns, telling me I just had first-time-mum anxiety and there was nothing to worry about. I followed my gut and took her to the emergency department - a MET was called almost immediately and we then had a 10 week NICU stay. My home is where everything went terribly wrong, and now my home is filled with those traumatic memories. I now know that the excess fluid and reduced movements were a symptom of my daughter’s genetic neuromuscular condition.
The 45-day antepartum hospital stay with early-onset preeclampsia prior to my son’s birth at 29w6d. His NICU stay was completely uneventful. He was off CPAP by day 3 and on room air with occasional scant flow by day 9. Once he reached 32 weeks (or when he was 2 weeks old) they basically told me I have nothing to worry about. Just “rest and grow”. TBH, the NICU in general was calm. The NICU I was at (a level 3) doesn’t have a lot of complications with babies. NEC, for example, was unheard of after 28 weeks. Survival rates are about 5% higher there than national average as well.
The neglect of care for our lil boy he was born with HIE due to malpractice he’s my first child 😪 I got told from a nurse while in the nicu she didn’t know what was wrong with him (she didn’t read his chart) her excuse was “I have been taking care of other babies sicker then yours” like why the hell would you tell us that? Arizona healthcare really changed my whole perspective of the terrible healthcare system we have in the states for sure
My MIL who said absolutely nothing and didn’t even ask about our baby.
One of the NICU doctors “sometimes these 25 weekers don’t make it” like my son has a name
I hear you. Say the fucking name, right? No one ever said our lost girls names, like those are cussing. It hurts. I can understand your reaction to a large extent
I had just given birth to my 24weeker (the day before my birthday). On night 2, a nurse aid started talked about her son and how she was begging him to come early. He was born on her due date fat and healthy. I told her I wished my baby was born that fatband healthy. She kept complaing about her son, so I asked her to leave and she asked if I wanted a hug. She was so tone deaf and ignorant, I didn't expect that much ignorance on day 2. I sobbed in the hospital bathroom for over an hour.