Graduation!

Life in the NICU is a weird paradoxical world where time stops and yet flies by at the same time. The Ginge, as he has fondly come to be known, remained seriously unwell but improved immensely by the day. Once the chest tube was out, his breathing improved, once he was on nasal cannula O2 his right sided pulmonary hypertension gradually faded, once the respiratory acidosis was rebalanced, his arterial line came out… we watched him with a mix of love and terror really. There were so many other sick babies around us, I waited for the rug to be pulled out from under my feet and for him to get sicker instead of more well. But he didn’t. We could start holding him. Which was the best feeling ever!

By day 6 they were talking about us leaving the NICU. I didn’t want to leave our safe little bubble of one on one care by phenomenal nurses, immediate access to every specialist known to man, the reassuring confines of the small car sized isolette with its warming lamp in the large noisy yet intimate quartet of bays. Yet I also knew that this talk of us leaving, meant we were graduating, which was A Very Good Thing. It meant he was no longer extremely unwell. He was almost too well to be in the NICU! Over the course of the next day we spoke with all the members of his team, all of whom knew him by name, knew us for being the rockstar redheads baby’s parents, and they all were excited and positive and proud of this tiny baby’s progress so fast! So, at 8 days old, my Ginger Warrior graduated from the NICU and we moved upstairs to the infamous 10 East!

A little tangent here, but I have to mention the knitted octopus in the pictures. There’s a nurse that knits these for all the NICU babies. I cried when I found out, as it seemed so very lovely, and then even more poignant when his nurse one day explained the reason she made them was the tentacles feel like the umbilical cord so many tiny babies can be comforted by holding on to them. Amazing. We kept the Ginge’s with him in hospital and now at home it’s kept safe for him to have when he’s older as a memento.