My Perspective!

I saw this on FB this morning. This has been my life for the past 38 years. How can anyone ever understand unless they have walked in my shoes? Just a little reflection going on as I prepare to retire in the near future! I celebrate 40 years of being a nurse this year and 38 of them have been in an NICU environment. You can be experiencing the ultimate day which quickly disintegrates into your worst nightmare. I have witnessed miracles in my career! It is very hard to let go! But, slowly, gradually it is happening!

Neonatal medicine was a pretty new field when I first discovered it in 1976.   There have been so many positive changes for these little tykes.  At first babies 29-30 weeks gestation were the youngest to survive, now the limit is pretty much 23-24weeks.  And Surfactant has been a miracle drug for these smallest of small.  And now a days single patient rooms are found to be the best for preemies.  And kangaroo care for the tiniest.  They thrive when with their mamas. 

Don’t you just like, I don’t know… hold babies all day long?
Yes.
I hold a baby when I hand him to his mother for the first time, three weeks after his birth date.
I hold a baby when teaching a new mother how to breastfeed her child.
I hold a baby to feed him, to rock him to sleep, to bathe him and bundle him.
I hold a baby when nothing but morphine and walking the halls 24 hours a day is the only thing that will quiet him down while he’s withdrawing from the illegal drugs his mother took.
I hold a baby’s arm still when my fellow nurse inserts an IV.
I hold a baby’s head still while we bag oxygenated air back into his tiny lungs.
I hold a baby when he has no family to hold him.
I hold a baby when he takes his last breaths because his parents didn’t make it to the hospital in time.
I hold a baby when I’m placing his lifeless, tiny hands in plaster to make a keepsake for his parents… because there is no baby to hold anymore.
Yes.
I hold babies all day long.
(via whatshouldwecallnicunursing)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad