NICU

Nerves.  Nerves are what sense the world around you and they pass that information along to your brain.  My nerves sense that little babies are fragile and that I am afraid of them.  Not all babies, but the ones in the NICU are there for a reason, they are sick.  I cannot just take an 18-ga needle, start an IV, and open up a bag of fluids to fix them. 

My first night, two hours into the shift, I felt hot.  My body was covered in sweat.  I was going to pass out and I needed to get out of the room STAT.  I set the baby down and went for the break room.  I woke up with my feet up, lying on a couch.  Ate lucky charms bar, drank some water, and went back to work.  Same feeling, hot, clammy, diaphoretic.  Sat down for a second time, drank some water, felt better.  Half hour later, running for the bathroom.  Now all the NICU nurses think I am crazy as I had not even been there for two hours and I am leaving due to passing out and getting sick. 

By the time I got home, I had body aches and a fever.  3 blankets and a heating blanket couldn’t even get me to warm up.  I went to the doctor in the morning, and the diagnosis: Influenza A.  He suggested I go to Oakwood and be admitted to OBS for 23 hours as I displayed many symptoms of H1N1 but why go there when I can keep fluids down.  I am a nurse; I can take care of myself at home and not catch more bugs than already in my system.  After 4 days I was ready to go back to the NICU.

So many emotions have flooded my head the past month being there.  I have baby fever; I will not lie about that.  But I am also scared to have children now.  This is what stinks about being a nurse before certain events in your life.  What if I decel and they cannot get the baby out in time and the end up on a ventilator?   Now they have pneumonia and cannot extubate.  Scary.  What if my husband cannot handle the crying and shakes the baby and they hemorrhage and become brain dead?  Worried.  What if something goes wrong with me during delivery and someone has to take care of my child alone?  Alone.  What if there are so many things wrong with the development of my baby and I do not have the ability to take care of them?  Strength.

Scared.  Worried.  Alone.  Strength. 

These are the characteristics of parents who have children in the NICU.  These are also the characteristics that make the nurses in the NICU great at what they do.  I give them so much credit but would never want to be a full-time NICU nurse.