Bonding with a Baby in the NICU

When my babies were the in the NICU I thought a lot about the bonding process and have been wanting to write about it. The whole birthing process was so different for me this time around. With my first I was in labor for 33 hours total and about 3 of those were spent pushing. Lizzie was taken from me and put in to my arms and barely left my side for the next 12 hours. Unfortunately she then had to do to the special care unit at the hospital for IV antibiotics but they brought her back to me every 2 hours and she was only in the hospital and extra night. So I pretty much bonded with her immediately.

My experience this time around was very different. The labor was unexpected and the hospital and doctors were all so foreign to me. Both babies were breech so I had no choice in having a c-section. They cut me open, took my babies, showed them to me for a minute and then whisked them off to the NICU. I spent the next few hours waiting for feeling to come back in to my legs then they wheeled me in to the NICU so I could peer at my babies before going to the maternity ward. When I woke up in the morning and they had me go for a walk I walked past the nursery and saw all the babies that were able to be with their parents. It made me sad knowing that mine were on another floor hooked up to all sorts of machines and not with their mother.

I actually had a hard time believing that I even had babies. When I went to visit them in the NICU I would look at them and not really believe that they were mine. Emily looked familiar to me but Alex didn't. It wasn't until I had some time to hold my babies that I started to feel connected to them and even then it took awhile. So while some people may bond instantly with their babies in the NICU, that definitely wasn't the case for me. It was strange not to have that instant connection that you think you should have. You feel bad, almost guilty about it.

I'm totally bonded with them now and I can't imagine having any other babies but it was definitely a completely different experience then the first time around.