Pros and Cons of Spending the First Weeks of Your Son's Life in the NICU
by Timothy Mudie
Pro: All the free saltines you can eat.
Con: It's the neonatal intensive care unit, so they don't have any actual salt on them.
Pro: The doctor you meet with says you did the right thing bringing your son in when you did. You caught whatever is happening early. So perceptive of the little changes happening in his behavior.
Con: You register the words but hear the tone, see the look in her eyes that says: You are a failure as a parent. There is something wrong with your baby because there is something wrong with you.
Pro: You've often been accused of not feeling deeply, of hiding your emotions. After the wailing when you had him admitted, the way you choked on your own snot and tears when the doctor inserted the spinal tap, no one can say that about you anymore.
Con: The sobs wrack your body so hard they cause pain behind your eye so sharp you worry it will never go away. You're given a hard cot in a closed-off waiting room, but are too ashamed to ask for new linen after you weep through the pillowcase.
Pro: Nurses monitor him round the clock. Hovering over his plastic bassinet, swaddling him, stroking his tiny feet and promising everything will be okay, doing so much better than you could.
Con: He might bond with them more than he does with you.
Pro: The doctors can't find anything wrong with him.
Con: Clearly, something is.
Pro: The tests and monitors and x-rays finally bear fruit.
Con: Something is growing inside him.
Pro: You think about him so much, your love for him is so fierce, that sometimes it scares you.
Con: You're so very scared.
Pro: Your boy eats again, the first sustenance he's taken in days that isn't through the IV.
