Kangaroo

David continued to improve quickly.  I was not allowed to go and see him unless someone was around to take me to the NICU.  Walking more than a few steps was pain beyond control.  So sometimes a family member was around and sometimes I could get a nursing student that had nothing to do to take me to the NICU.  The day I got to be with David all by myself was one of those days that I found a random nursing student.  She happily wheeled me up to the NICU and said to call when I was ready to come back to my room.  The nurse taking care of David that day asked if I wanted to hold him skin to skin.  She said it was good for bonding and breastfeeding and all other things.  I knew exactly what she was talking about.  I even knew why what was called kangaroo care was so vital to a preemie.  It started out in Central America where incubators like the one David was in were few and far between.  In order to save these tiny infants nurses would hold them skin to skin so they could stay warm, and grow and live.  Since then numerous studies have been done to show the positive effects on kangaroo care.  In that moment I didn't care about the studies.  All I wanted was to hold my baby.  Give him to me and let me drink in his beautiful smells and sounds.  Let me feel his heartbeat and his breath on my skin. 

The nurse helped me into the more comfy chair they had in the room, stripped David down to his diaper and then laid him on my bare chest.  This tiny little infant that was not even supposed to be born yet was here with me in this quiet space.  The nurse covered us with blankets, reclined the chair and turned off the lights.  For the first time in a long time I was left alone to be with my baby.  Tears ran down the sides of my face and into my ears.  I didn't care.  I was so happy to be with this little person that all other things around me ceased to exist.  Even the beeping of all the monitors went away.  While I was holding David the doctors and residents and med students and PA's came to round.  It always amazes me that doctors in hospitals travel in herds.  But what amazed me more was the fact that they respected me and my time with my son.  They stood outside of the room talking in quiet hushed voices.  When they were done only the main neonatologist came in to talk to me briefly about how David was doing and their plan for the next 24 hours.  Finally I was not living inside Grey's Anatomy where the resident gives the differential diagnosis to the rest of the senior doctors on staff while the patient sits annoyed. 

David was only allowed outside of his incubator for a certain period of time.  Much sooner than I wanted the nurse was back to take David from me.  In all I held him for 45 minutes.  Those 45 minutes felt like two.  Reluctantly I gave him back.  But, I was given good news.  The nurse said, "Tomorrow the doctor's want you to try and breastfeed."  I remember tears welling up in my eyes.  "Oh my God!" I thought.  This might actually happen.  All this pumping is not for nothing.  I had nursed my other two sons without fail.  I stopped nursing Jonah at 15 months only because I got pregnant with Caleb and was too sick to do anything.  Caleb I nursed for 19 months and stopped because my husband gently nudged me, "I think its time, Jules"  I desperately wanted to do the same for David.  Probably the yearning was even greater because he was so tiny and I knew how powerful the experience could be for both mom and baby.  And deep inside I didn't want to be a failure.  I had nursed my first two sons.  I did not want to fail my third and most fragile one.  I was going to will the breastfeeding to happen no matter what I had to do. 

I had spent four weeks in the hospital on bed rest waiting for David to come.  Before that I had spent close to 2 months on bed rest at home.  I had this high-risk pregnancy that was not my fault, I had no control over developing a placenta previa and an accreta.  But, I felt guilt.  Immense guilt that when I stopped to think about it the guilt it overtook me in an awful way.  I wanted to kill myself while in the hospital.  That guilt I could not wash away or push away.  It stayed with me even as I tried to shove it way, way down into the recesses of my brain.   Being able to breastfeed David (I thought) was going to wash some of that guilt away.  I was going to be able to be a mother deserving of another son to raise.