today we're going back to Children's Hospital for their NICU reunion, basically a chance for them to go back and see the nurses they don't remember that took care of them for the first several months of their little lives and for us to show off our little success stories. I have mixed emotions about the visit, I'm super proud of our little guys and extremely thankful for all those people did for us but I also have some crazy anxiety coming on that I'm trying to suppress for the trip.
I think today is more for the nurses' sake - to keep them able to do their jobs, which can at times include the most awful thing imaginable, by bringing in a bunch of smiling children that turned out happy and healthy because of them. I'm all for it.
we were talking about the whole experience last night and I find it's one of those things I don't look back on very often, almost to the point of forgetting that it happened at all, and that probably says a lot about the massive layers of denial that your brain puts up to get you through times like that and keep you moving and functioning in a semi-normal capacity.
I remember sending out photos of the boys in their plastic incubators and getting concerned emails from everyone asking if they were doing alright and if we were holding up alright and being genuinely shocked by the questions because I had been sending the pics out because it showed one of the boys with his eyes open with a little smile on his face, completely forgot that other people probably noticed the IV's, feeding tubes, oxygen tubes, heart monitors and wires that filled the rest of the picture, or that the boys were the size and complexion of bald baby gerbils instead of the plump, swaddled babies with little blue knit hats that people usually get photos of from hospitals.
Our friends were great, of course, and either didn't mind or encouraged the optimistic sort of crazy that set in over the 83 and 96 days the little ones were confined to the NICU (Owen and Aidan respectively) and it wasn't until much later that I realized that I had been totally insane.
Sweeney came up for a visit in the NICU once and John later told me about standing there losing his mind while the heart monitor alarms were going off on the wall over Owen's bed and I just stood there talking to him just like any dad would over a sleeping baby, and how he almost wanted to leap out of his skin trying to keep it together in a room like that, just the effort of trying to appear normal in that place was crazy if your sanity is not safely tucked away for awhile.
Even having gone through all that the NICU is now that place for me as well, it makes me tense, all those little tiny people everywhere with the most serious of medical problems and their parents optimistically cooing at their bedsides. Even though I was that person once I can't understand how it happened and even though I'm sure I could if I had to, I don't ever want to do it again.
if visiting with our little boys helps the women that have to be there everyday NOT go insane so they can do their jobs then that is what we'll do and I will have to clench my teeth for the visit.
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Five Man Job performs this evening at the IAGG at the BNW
Total Bullshit* performs tomorrow at the MNCS at the Beat Coffeehouse
8pm for both - both are silly cheap.
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* if you really want to bring down a show sometime, ask to hear some fucking crazy kids-in-hospital stories. I promise it'll suck the comedy out of the room.
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