This month, a couple of dads who have been in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) share their experiences. This week, my husband shares his first NICU journey. Although a stressful period, he describes our son’s recovery as a miracle. Read on…
I had never heard the word NICU until the morning of the birth of my son (currently 3 and a half years). I was filled with joy when I received a message at dawn that my wife had delivered successfully.
Early the next morning when I visited my wife and she mentioned the baby had been taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), I thought it was a place they kept new born babies, ensured they were fine, and prepared them to go home.
Initially, I assumed my wife and the baby were both fine because she didn’t give me any reason to worry. She told me she would go and see the baby around 9am. “At least by evening, we would be heading home”, I thought to myself.
When she returned from the “NICU” she was talking about, her mood had changed. That was when she gave me the full meaning of NICU and details of what she saw there.
I got a bit concerned. She said the doctors needed to run some tests on the baby and gave me the test request forms to go and make payments and collect containers for the baby’s blood samples to be taken.
It was the beginning of a long and torturous journey at the Central Laboratory of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Lots of people were at the facility making payments, presenting lab samples and collecting lab results at the same time. It was a chaotic scene.
“Let me just take it cool and get through with this….after all, I won’t be here again” I told myself. I never thought it was just the beginning.
Later that evening, around 4p.m, I was allowed to see my son; it was my first experience at the NICU. I was directed to his cot by one of the nurses on duty. I was eager to see how he looked.
When I got there, he was asleep, with a frown on his face. He had tubes around him, connected to some machines making strange noises. I had no idea what they were but I knew all was not well and got more worried.
I turned around and saw other tiny newborns in cots connected to similar machines. Some had very sophisticated machines around them. “Will all these babies survive, are they alive?” I asked myself. I felt sad for those poor babies.
The doctors and nurses were busy that day. The whole place was strange to me and I couldn’t bring myself to speak to anyone. I didn’t even know what to ask. I looked through a chart beneath my child’s cot but didn’t really understand what the doctors had written. Feeling helpless, I prayed for him and all the other children and left.
Three weeks of uncertainty
I spent the next three weeks vising the NICU every morning and evening. I requested for more information about my child’s condition from the doctors and they provided me with all the information the best way they could.
My wife was also on their neck all the time seeking for explanations for what was going on. Interestingly, none of the doctors or nurses said to me, “your child is fine”. The most assuring statement they made was “he is making some progress”
We run several tests on daily basis and many drugs. Since I had not taken leave from my employers, I had to work from the hospital while running errands. During that period, I had little sleep and was always exhausted. It was a very challenging moment in my life.
There were days were days when his condition was not getting any better and all I did was prayed fervently and read lots of scriptures from the Bible. I was inspired by what I read and held on closely to God. I knew a miracle would happen and didn’t want to give up.
Miracle
Honestly, although I had a strong feeling a miracle was going to happen, I grew impatient; what I thought would be few days at the hospital turned into weeks, heading to a month. But I never stopped praying.
On daily basis, I visited the hospital in the morning before 7am, visited the baby at the NICU and prayed for him and other children. I then sought updates on his condition from the doctors.
If there were tests to be done or drugs to be bought, I quickly got them sorted. Occasionally, I dashed to the office to complete my work schedule and quickly rushed back to the hospital.
Before leaving the hospital in the evenings with my wife, we made sure all labs had been done, lab reports had been collected, and drugs had been bought.
After three weeks, my child was discharged from the NICU. It is difficult to explain to people sometimes but I believe his recovery was a miracle as I had read on the internet that babies hardly recovered completely from that diagnosis ( Severe birth asphyxia)
When we got home that evening, the young man still had a frown on his face. While I was taking pictures with him, I wondered whether he was ever going to laugh or smile. I felt pity for him; his early days on earth had been unpleasant so he had every reason to be angry, I told myself. The first day I saw what seemed like a smile on his face was during his naming ceremony, he looked lively and different. Now he is a happy, energetic, and a strong minded boy.