New Mommas

NO I am not a New momma! Not yet, well kind of. So we got this puppy Cora. And while she is soooo cute, she doesn't think it's nice to sleep all night in her kennel, be out for 2 hours running around like a maniac and then go back in her kennel and sleep all day. Seems legit, although I could handle it. Either way she has been good to me, she slept all night for Taylor and she slept from 8:30ish to 1pm for me. Problem is, I am still exhausted and she is wide awake ready to play. New momma.

I absolutely love my job, there are days when I get paid to sit in a rocking chair and snuggle some tiny babes while their mommas are at home. There are days when a baby gets sick and I work my butt off for the entire 12 hour shift, trying to do a million tests and make a million changes to find out what is wrong and how to fix it. And there are days like last night....Where I have two semi-sick but stable kids (as stable as kids get in the NICU) and then we have several new kids come, like maybe 2 sets of twins. When kids have to come to the NICU but they are a little bit bigger, healthier and stronger, we get to hang around a little bit longer in the delivery room before taking them back to the NICU, let dad come take pictures, weigh them, do footprints, swaddle them up with their hats ect. We get to take the baby over to mom and let her see her child for the first time. See the tears well up in her eyes, see the pride and the pain and the joy all right there written on her face like a black sharpie in bold font....."New Momma"

That may be one of the most rewarding things I do in my job, is get to be the one that says, Congratulations! Happy Birthday! Look Mom and Dad, here is your new baby!!
What a cool thing to get to do. I know that L&D nurses and Mother/Baby nurses and OB/GYNs get to do this quite a bit but it is so different when these parents are terrified their baby will be very sick and need alot of help and machines to breathe and stay alive and out comes a screaming tiny kicking little thing that needs to be dried off and shown to their parents. I love that we make the effort to stick around as long as we are able and as long as is safe for baby so that parents can get pictures, of the baby, of the warmer, of the numbers on the scale, of mommas hot tears rolling down her cheeks as she sees the human SHE MADE for the first time. I get to say, "I am Lauren, I am one of the nurses caring for your sweet little tonight and if you need anything at all, you let me know"

Most NICU deliveries do not go that well and the babies are alot sicker, most times we RUN into the room with a herd of people, get the baby stable enough to RUN with it down the 100 foot hallway back to the NICU and noone sees or hears the baby at all until several hours later when we have it stable enough for dad to come see it. Most of the time there is no weight in the delivery room so there is no picture of the scale or baby's footprints or mommas hot tears. Most of the time those tears momma has are hot with fear and pain that her baby is sick and she can't do anything about it, and noone takes a picture of tears filled with pain.

So on the days when I can take a swaddled tiny being over to a momma and tell her that her baby is just fine and doing well and going to hang out with me so I can keep close watch for a bit, my heart sings. It sings for the mom, the doctors, the nurses, and for the dad that got to take the pictures.