Hellobee

At the end of my last post, I was hoping to find some solace by finally spending some time with the baby. After wrapping up my conversation with the neonatologist, we walked into the baby’s room. There were two nurses and a respiratory therapist there rushing around and working with him. A quick scan of the equipment in the now jam-packed room showed that he was intubated, sedated, on a high amount of blood pressure support with dopamine, and on a high frequency oscillating ventilator. The baby looked swollen and his color was terrible. His blood pressure was still low, oxygen levels were marginal, and heart rate was still really high. Mr. Jacks was kind of shocked and scared to see how different the baby looked from earlier. I was relieved to finally get to spend some time processing what was going on. There was more information available by just being in the room than all the conversations we could have with the care team.

While I had no idea why the doctor was being so weird with us, I did know NICU etiquette. We are all (including the doctors) guests of the nurses in this house and that every move we make will have to be approved by the nursing staff. As a resident, you quickly learn to never touch a NICU baby without the nurse’s permission. Our relationship with them would make or break how much access we would get to the baby, so I wanted to make sure that we showed that we knew the nurses were our point people. The charge nurse provided us with a brief orientation to the unit. She seemed really nice and I asked permission to see the baby, and she offered to explain all the tubes and lines to us. The orientation helped Mr. Jacks start to feel like he was an active participant in the process. There’s nothing better than a bunch of technology to help engage an engineer. While they were discussing the finer points of sat probes and umbi lines, I was finally able to take a good look at the little dude.

Despite the swelling, lines, tubes, and distress the baby was beautiful. I wanted to be with him and I felt fiercely protective– of him, and of his birth parents. I wished I could run out of there with him and take him somewhere safe, but I knew that for the moment this place was going to have to be that safe place. Perhaps there would be a transfer to more familiar ground later, but as non-parents we currently had no right to ask anything at this point. We were lucky they allowed us to be there.

B. joined us and actually he took it all in stride despite the intimidating nature of the situation. Like Mr. Jacks, he was fascinated by the technology and the baby. He quickly became the family go-between, shuttling birth family members in and out and providing them with a similar NICU orientation to the one we received. I smiled as I watched him rapidly learn and teach what was going on to the people who cared about this baby. I really, really liked B! This is another theme from our experience. B and Mama S were so strong and present and caring– all while facing their own grief at the thought of placing their baby and their fears about the baby’s illness. You really see what people are like while you are under stress, and I saw the absolute best in these two young parents. Every day I was humbled by their dedication, intelligence, patience and kindness. If I was saying that we were a family with B and Mama S during the birth parent dinner, this NICU stay cemented it firmly and forever. You can’t go through what we’ve been through together and not be permanently changed– it was a relationship reinforced through great stress.

But of course, adoption is complicated, and our close relationship with the birth parents made the NICU rules more challenging.  Only two people were allowed at the bedside at a time… but what do you do when there are four parents? That day, the lovely charge nurse made an exception for us so that B, Mr. Jacks and I could all be there, but any flexibility in this rule was nursing dependent and an issue throughout the hospitalization. We were “non parents” (never mind the just be a mom comment!) and with B’s high degree of interest and involvement, the nurses were confused about how to handle the situation. It was really interesting to see them each approach it differently and inadvertently reveal their own preconceptions and biases about adoption. But I was definitely looking for consistency at that point!

During this time, an agency representative contacted us to let us know that they wanted us to sign the adoption paperwork first thing in the morning. All of us parents were so much more focused on the survival of this baby than on the details of paperwork. I honestly felt that as long as he was ok, it didn’t matter which set of parents he would go home with. The most important thing was his recovery. Why wouldn’t we wait and focus our attention on the baby (not the adoption) until he was stable? Could we commit to this without even understanding what was going on with the baby?

Of course that brought up another issue too. What was going to happen with insurance? If we delayed signing the paperwork, would that delay when our insurance kicked in? Would my insurance be retroactive to birth? If not how on earth would we handle the financial burden? What if B and Mama S didn’t sign? How would they handle the financial burden?

We all felt pushed and pulled by the uncertainty… but really, the most important issue was whether this dear sweet baby was even going to be ok. Mr. Jacks went home to attend to the girls and I stayed late into the night, just sitting in a chair watching the machines perform every single function for him. I was allowed to touch his foot for a time. I held that little soft warm foot as if transfusing all the love and strength that we all felt for this little baby as he did the hard work of fighting for survival. Once it was clear that the night nurse was wonderful, I went home, hoping that there would be some clarity and peace in the stillness of sleep. I was scared to shut down, but was assured that they’d call us with any status changes. I entered our dark home, kissed my sleeping girls, and hoped there would be better news in the morning. I fell into a deep but restless sleep.

To be continued…