Twins Blog: NICU Guilt
November 16, 2010, By Josh Katzowitz 9 comments
I wake up every day in my own bed after a good seven hours of sleep. I eat my breakfast, and my day continues like usual. It’s work or it’s buying more baby gear or it’s on the couch with my wife picking our way through the DVR. I’m also at the hospital every day, visiting my children in the N.I.C.U., as they gain weight and prepare to come home after arriving more than two months prematurely.
But mostly, my routine is pretty normal. And I feel guilty about it.
I think it’s mostly because I don’t feel like a father quite yet. I care like a father, and I worry like a father. I think about my kids all the time, and I want them home so bad that I’m actually really excited to begin putting together their bassinets (and I hate putting things together). But I haven’t experienced the 3 a.m. feedings or the zombie-like walk of someone who hasn’t slept in three weeks or the constant parental worry of, “What the hell am I doing?”
In some ways, I suppose, that’s good. I still get to sleep. Because my kids are still at the N.I.C.U., I don’t have to worry about them breathing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I’m not up in the dead of night trying to keep myself awake as I press a bottle to my babies’ lips.
Yet, I feel guilty, because, while I’m home and sleeping in comfortable surroundings, my twins still aren’t. They share a crib that wasn’t built out of my love for them. They’re wrapped in the hospital’s blankets, not the ones my mother-in-law has knitted especially for them. They’re still hooked up to the tubes and wires that measure their breathing and their oxygen saturation. They’re not suckling at my wife’s breast; they’re still fed through a tube that runs from their nose into their stomach.
They just celebrated their one-month birthday, but we didn’t get to hold them in our arms and whisper happy birthday all night long. My kids were in the hospital, while, five miles away, my wife and I ate cupcakes in celebration.
In reality, we know we’re the lucky ones. The twins are still learning how to eat and breath at the same time, and because – we constantly remind ourselves of this – they were born almost 10 weeks before we were ready for them, their little bodies are still developing. Our kids are growing, and growing pretty quickly.
In the N.I.C.U., that’s one of the best possible outcomes. You might remember that I told the story of the baby across the aisle from our kids’ crib. She was a 27-weeker who weighed little more than a pound. She did well at first and then suffered a setback, and the parents gathered their families because they thought the end was near. Then, the baby recovered and seemed on the right path. Then, all of a sudden, the baby was transferred across town to another N.I.C.U. where the really sick babies go.
We likely won’t see them again, and we likely won’t know their baby girls’ outcome.
So, yeah, we’re lucky that Stella and Noah continue to progress and progress well.
Never was that more evident when I caught a cold and had to stay away from their bedside for four days. By the time I returned, their faces noticeably were thicker, their cheeks noticeably fuller, their heads noticeably bigger.
We’re hoping they can come home in three weeks. We’re hoping they’ll have worked through their breathing issues and they’ll be taken off their caffeine and they’ll have surpassed the five-pound barrier.
I’m ready for the long, sleepless nights. I’m ready for the constant spit-ups and the dozens of daily diaper changes. I’m ready to hold them close to me in the morning, and I’m ready to kiss their bellies at night.
I’m ready to feel like a father. Because so far, I feel like a stranger.
Josh Katzowitz lives in Atlanta and covers the NFL for CBSSports.com. He is a featured contributor to ManoftheHouse.com and author of the book, Bearcats Rising. He's currently working on a book about pro football that is scheduled to be released in 2012.
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