One Month Old

Sweet Baby Girl turned one month old yesterday!  We celebrated by returning the oxygen tanks and pulse ox monitor to the medical supply company yesterday.  She’s been cut lose from the “high risk” newborn follow ups at the pediatric clinic and she’s been released from care by the neonatologist.  As the neonatologist told me, “She’s a nice, normal, healthy baby now!”  We’ve been assured that we have no concerns for future problems with her lungs and that she’s not at a higher risk for asthma, pneumonia or anything along those lines. We are so incredibly thankful for such a good outcome.

Now that things have started settling down, I’ve had time to reflect on the events of the last month.  I will admit that I have downplayed at lot of what happened when she was born.  This is partly because things happened so fast the day she was born and immediately after that we just didn’t realize the seriousness or magnitude of what was happening.  We just didn’t have time for our thoughts to stray in that direction; we had to focus on what was happening right then and there to cope.  The other part is that the truth sounds so melodramatic and still a little surreal to me.   The final little bit is that the truth scares the crap out of me.

If I am being brutally honest and blunt – my baby could have died.  She couldn’t breathe on her own after birth. That’s not a small problem or a small complication. That’s a Big Bad. I have to also admit to myself that I was also in danger.  If the nurses are bringing bags of blood into the operating room for you, it’s probably not good.  I don’t like to admit this because it means I should probably be cutting myself a little more slack in my recovery.  And, you know, that’s not my style…I have stuff to do.

The image of my tiny baby surrounded by wires, tubes, a tube down her throat and a metal box holding her head immobile is burned on my brain.  I won’t ever forget that.  I felt so horribly helpless sitting alone in the hospital after she was born.  I had a baby that I loved desperately even though I had never held her or really seen her.  I saw the edge of her arm and leg inside the PICU transport cart and managed to get two fingers on her before they wheeled her away.  I sat awake all night staring at the photo on my cell phone and remembering the feel of her warm soft skin on my fingers.  I tried so hard to imagine a connection between us, as if I could WILL her better that night. 

I called the hospital around 1am to check on her.  I was sure she had to be improving by then.  She wasn’t.  The nurse and doctor’s update was not at all reassuring. They said she was struggling to breathe, even on the ventilator, there was so much fluid on her lungs still they couldn’t keep them clear and that they were concerned about infection.  My sweet baby was all alone at the hospital, fighting to breathe and I was incapacitated. I couldn’t help her. 

I made it my goal to be discharged the next day, even though I knew that it was very early.  I thought if I could just see her, touch her and talk to her everything would be ok.  I did manage to get discharged the next day.  I won’t say that I lied about how I was feeling to get released, I think I just deluded myself into believing it.   Looking back, I don’t know how I managed to make it out of the hospital, across town and up to the nursery.  I was in so much pain, but all I could think was that if I stopped moving, I wouldn’t get to her.  My dad walked me down the hall towards the nursery. As soon as I figured out which door lead to her, I lost track of everything else.  I easily spotted my 9 lb baby in the nursery filled with premies. 

She was beautiful and heartbreaking.  She had two tubes in her mouth, one to help her breathe and one to pull the fluid out.   She had a line in her umbilical for glucose and hydration.  She had an IV, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse ox monitor and leads to measure her heartbeat and respirations.  Her head was surrounded by a silver metal box and a blanket.  This held her head still and supported the tubes down her throat.  She couldn’t be held because of the ventilator and it was hard to find a place to touch her because of everything attached to her.  The vent tube bothered her, so she fought it and cried periodically. The nurse assured me this was a good thing…she was feeling well enough to be a little feisty.  But, it hurt my heart so much to see her screw up her face to cry, open her mouth and let out a soundless wail. 

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything is OK and that Mommy’s here.  But nothing worked.  The nurse tried to show me how to cradle her legs so she felt held.  I just didn’t do it right.  It broke my heart to be there and not be able to comfort my own baby.   I hated that the nurse had a magic touch that could soothe her, yet I was grateful that she was soothed.  I hated that the nurse knew my baby better than I did.  The nurse explained that she didn’t like having her head touched, that she liked the pacifier and that it was best if she slept so she didn’t fight the tube down her throat and that they had “no touch” times where they let the babies rest.  I felt so useless and unneeded. I realized that sitting by her bed all night would be detrimental to her since I’d probably wake her. 

Looking back, I have such guilt over the events of those first few days.  I can’t help but feel I should have KNOWN something was wrong when I started bleeding.  I should have taken my symptoms more seriously. I should have known that the dizziness and lightheadedness was because I was bleeding.  I should have called for help sooner.  If I had done that, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up on the ventilator. 

Shortly after the bleeding started, she started kicking and wiggling all over the place.  It was unusual because she’d been moving less over the last couple of days – pretty typical as babies get larger and descend into the pelvis since they just run out of room. After Mike got home, I commented to him that she was really “rockin’ and rollin’” in there.  I now realize that may have been a signal.  She may have been moving so much because she was inhaling blood was in distress.  All those kicks and wiggles could have been from a tiny panicked baby and I didn’t know it. I didn’t know she needed help.  Mommies are supposed to know and are supposed to help and I didn’t.  I feel so much guilt over it.  I feel awful that she was alone at the hospital going through the tests, blood work, IVs, x-rays, and intubations alone.  I’ve been told everything – “You couldn’t have known.”  “You had to rest and recover, too.”  But those are hollow reassurances.  I still feel as if I failed her somehow.  I should have known. I should have done more.

I’m so very thankful to be snuggling this sweet baby today.  She’s happy and healthy, gaining weight nicely and is starting to look a little chubbier every day.  If I had my way, I’d snuggle her for hours each day and let the sweet weight of a baby on my chest and the smell of baby breath on my face sink into my soul and heal my heartache.

Educate and Make Community Connections

I’ve wanted to share this story for several weeks, but just haven’t had an opportunity to sit and write it.  Two days after Sweet Baby Girl was born, and while she was still in the Level 3 NICU, Soldier and I were visited by the Social Worker assigned to the Special Care Nurseries. She said that her visit was routine and that she meets with all parents with infants in the nursery to assess their needs.  Now, I’ll confess: I don’t know a lot about social workers and what they do beyond what I’ve seen on TV. (A very reliable source, I know.)  It sounded reasonable that she would visit with parents to ensure we were mentally, emotionally and physically able to care for a special needs newborn.  I expected questions along the lines of our home situation, other children in the house, child care and whether or not I worked outside the home. 

After jotting down our names, she said to Soldier, “You’re in the Army, right?”  I chalked this up to the haircut or that she knew we had been transferred from the military hospital.  I expected her to ask about my employment, but she didn’t. 

“So, you’re here then?”  Umm…you’re looking at him aren’t you, lady?  I didn’t get where she was going.  Soldier looked equally baffled.

“I mean, you’re got going over ‘there’ are you? You aren’t going away?”  Ohhh…I think she’s asking about a deployment.

“No,” I responded. “He’s not scheduled to deploy.”   Having had two deployment babies, I thought she was trying to find out if he was home for a while or not.

“Oh, good.  You won’t have to go overseas.”  She said this as if she was restating my answer.

“Well, I didn’t say that he’ll never deploy again, I just said that he’s not currently scheduled for a deployment.”

She still looked confused. “But, they say the troops will be home by Christmas.”

I was dumbfounded. “Well, yes, some of them.” 

Still confused, she asked “So, they won’t all be home then?”

I was a little horrified and couldn’t quite decide how to respond, but Soldier took care of it, “There’s a whole other country and a whole other war…Afghanistan.  There are still lots of soldiers deployed overseas…a war is still going on.”

I finally found my voice and thinking of all my friends with soldiers currently in Afghanistan, I tried to help by saying “You’ve probably seen it in the news. Fort Bliss has a lot of soldiers that have recently deployed to Afghanistan.”

“Oh yes,” she confidently answered, “Fort Bliss has had lots of soldiers stationed here for years.”

It was my turn to be confused but she had turned to me and said, “So, you’re all by yourself here.”   This was a statement and not a question.

Suddenly, I knew where she was going with this.  My guard went up and I immediately became suspicious of her.  “I’m sorry…I don’t know what you mean?”

“You know, you don’t have anyone here, do you?”  I was prepared to stonewall her but Soldier helped her out and said that my parents were here helping take care of the kids.  I knew that wasn’t what she was asking, but she let it go. 

In the few moments we had been talking with her, two things were obvious to me.  The first was that she knew nothing about the giant Army base in the middle of the city where she’s spent her whole life.  The second was that she seemed to hold some deep-seated, beliefs about the military, none of them favorable. She seemed to believe we had “no one” and were all alone.  In my exhausted, hormonal, emotionally fragile state, I wavered between anger and panic. 

I was angry that she could think that about me, without really knowing anything at all. Dozens of faces ran through my mind – all my sweet friends here in El Paso that had been calling, texting and messaging me their love, support, encouragement and offers of help over the last 48 hours.   If I had accepted all the offers of meals for my family, I wouldn’t have had to grocery shop or cook for about two months.  I had friends offer to pick up laundry, clean my house, walk my dog, watch my kids, take Monster Boy to preschool, run errands, grocery shop and sit with Sweet Baby Girl at the hospital so I could rest. Really, I had so much help that the only tasks leftover for me would be sitting on my bum and eating bon-bons. I was also very confident that those offering help really meant it. I have a hard time believing that civilians would get this kind of support from people not related to them.  Would civilian co-workers rally this kind of support? 

I was panicked because I didn’t know precisely what her role in my daughter’s care was. Did she have the power to influence when and how my daughter was discharged?  Could she recommend that my baby stay hospitalized longer because she believed I didn’t have the support systems necessary to care for her at home?   I was horrified at the thought that her preconceived notions about military families could keep my baby away from me longer than absolutely necessary.

I wanted to defend myself and my fellow Military Families, I wanted to give into my anger but as I looked at her I realized I saw confusion and uncertainty in her eyes.  I already knew the explanation – She knew nothing about military life.  Until recently, the base had been mostly a training location.  Soldiers and their families came and went rather quickly as the completed their courses.  There were some permanent units, but very few. Over all, it wasn’t a large installation.  However, things changed with the Base Realignment and Consolidation.  An entire combat division was relocated here. Over four years, the base population swelled by an additional 60,000 soldiers and family members.  And, these were War Fighters: soldiers and families that have been through, and expect to go through even more, deployments.  The community, and this social worker, didn’t know anything about the military service members and their families and how to support them.  It wasn’t her fault; she just didn’t know.

As I calmed down, I asked her “Do you get a lot of military families now?”

“Well, no.”  The truth came out. “We’ve been getting more over the last year…it’s definitely increasing.”

I chatted a bit with her about the base and explained about the division being relocated here and how many soldiers that meant.  I also explained that there are offices and folks on post that are intended to serve as community liaisons – to help military families integrate into the civilian community and to help educate the civilian community about military families.  I gave her a few examples: teachers and school districts work with the SLO, EFMP works with numerous agencies off and on post to provide care and support to families with special needs and unique circumstances, AFTB teaches “Army Basics” to those wanting to learn more about Army Life.  I offered to connect her with some of my contacts here on post, if she was interested in learning more about Military Families.  
 

After we were discharged, I followed up with her via e-mails. We discussed the base structure, the basics of ACS and army family support systems. I also shared my passion for AFTB.  I would Love, LOVE to see some of her staff in one of my AFTB classes. 

I also shared the National Military Family Association's Community Tool Kit with her.  This is an easy to read reference that helps civilians, that may not be familiar with the community, learn about Military Families and how to connect and support.  I really, really love these Tool Kits.  The Association also has a Military Child Tool Kit and a Military Teen Tool Kit that is perfect for sharing with teachers, pediatricians, guidance counselors, sports coaches, etc.  The Tool Kits came out of the Association's Operation Purple camps...they share what Military Children want you to know about them and about how they approach their life. The Association also completed a massive study in 2010 through the RAND corporation on Military Children. The results of this study are so humbling.  Our Military Children are so brave, so adventurous and so proud.  It makes my mommy heart just about burst.  To download a copy of the Tool Kits for free, order hard copies, read the report from the RAND study and check out the other Publications of the Association,  go to http://www.militaryfamily.org/publications/

I challenge you to look around your community, your friends and even your family.  Are you, as a Military Family, connecting with your community?  Do you feel like your community supports you or do you think they just don’t get it?  What about your civilian friends?  Your civilian family members?  I encourage you to share the resources at your local installation with them and talk about your experiences. You can be the bridge and the connection for them and help them learn and support other military families.

*This story appeared, in part, in National Military Family Association's "The Voice for Military Families" in the June/July 2012 edition.  For more information, www.militaryfamily.org.