While we were waiting our little Nolan to finish his antibiotic and be released from the NICU, they had a huge checklist of silly things they had to talk to us about before we were allowed to take him home. We still like to make fun of them because we already had another baby at home who was the exact same size... they are pretty paranoid there and we just thought it was silly...
1. Cutting their fingernails is considered surgery.
2. Swaddle Bath- bathing your baby wrapped in a blanket and uncovering one arm at a time or one leg at a time to clean it so the baby doesn't get cold.
(They are getting used to it and actually starting to like the bath now... promise)
3. When you put a car seat in your car you are supposed to put the handle down.
4. Babies don't shiver because they are cold.
5. Sometimes babies just cry, and there is no reason and no way to comfort them, they call it "Purple Crying", we had to watch a video about it... (We have a copy of the DVD. If you ever watch our babies, we are supposed to make you watch it.)
We also had to learn infant CPR and how to dislodge something from their throats when they are choking.
We were asked what Nolan's APGAR (Appearance (skin color), Pulse (heart rate), Grimace (reflex irritability), Activity (muscle tone), and Respiration) score was when he was born . We did not know at the time, but found out from our Early Intervention worker that he was a 3 when he was born, which is considered critically low. One of the nurses, during his stay, mentioned to us that he entered the NICU in better shape than they expected him to.
They NICU is a scary place for parents, and I'm sure babies as well. We are so thankful to have our little guy home and that there was a NICU when we needed it, but thy are slightly dramatic and we would never wish any sort of NICU stay on anyone... They took good care of our son, and we are very grateful for the doctors there, but it is one of the hardest things any parent will ever have to endure.
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