NICU/PICU Support

[Bumble Bee]

My son was born 5 weeks early and spent a few weeks in the Nicu. We brought him home on Christmas Eve, which was a direct answer to prayer. In February, he got sick again and he spent a week in the PICU and was in the hospital for 2 weeks. He is home again, but it has been so hard on our little family. Unfortunately, I had to be alone at the hospital with him for a majority of the time. I feel the need to connect with other families who have been through the same thing. If you have had a NICU/PICU experience, please share your story. Share how it impacted you, your spouse, your children. Let’s support each other.

 

[miamited]

Hi bumblebee,

I can share my story. My son was born 7 weeks premie. He weighed in at just a hair over 4lbs. You could hold him like a roll of hamburger in a single hand. He was all red and bluish when he was first born, but pretty quickly got his color and he's honestly been one of the greatest blessings of my life. He spent a couple of weeks in the NICU while they bulked him up a bit and then came home.

It was only a month after hurricane Andrew had blown down our house and we were living in a mobile home that Allstate put on our front lawn. Those were hectic days to say the least, but God is faithful and good. My son has grown and, while not particularly tall, is about average height. He made straight A's throughout all of his school years and graduated with honors from Clemson U. with a computer engineering degree and is now making a successful living with Intel.

For us, his days in the NICU were a blessing because we didn't have much of a home for him to come home to on the day that he was born. It was only 2 weeks after Andrew and Allstate hadn't placed the mobile home yet. He has been a wonderful blessing and I raised him, I believe, in the admonition and instruction of the Lord (no that doesn't mean just taking him to church). God's word is true. Raise your child up in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Some of the things that I did that you may want to consider as he grows... Don't read him fairly tales when he goes to bed. Instead read him a chapter, or part thereof, of the proverbs. Then the Psalms. Never raise your ire in anger, but be firm and fair in your discipline. For him, on the very, very few occasions that I had to discipline, it was 15 minutes of time out. I would set my clock for exactly 15 minutes and when the time was up, I would go into his room and tell him how very, very much I loved him and ask, "Do you think that God is happy with what you did?" I never made it about me.

Children are a blessing from God, but they have to be molded into the kind of adult that they will become. That's your job.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

 

[Bumble Bee]

I really want to post my story in here but it is still so raw even months later.

 

[Bumble Bee]

Funny, I opened this thread and was about to post that I want to share the story but it hurts still… turns out I said the same thing over a year ago. Update though, we had another hospitalization with him in April.