Holding: a Mother’s Experience
87A mother’s story of holding her premature baby
The day began, as most did then, in the middle of the night. I woke into semi-darkness, feeling the sweat on my back turn cold.
Outside my room, fluorescent lights flickered above pale blue walls. I shuffled to the nurses’ station. I met so many doctors and nurses then, so many names forgotten – even her face is vague now, a smile surrounded by brown curly hair. The smile was what mattered, the hands reaching out to me, the gentleness of her voice as she said, “Couldn’t you sleep?”
I shook my head.
She invited me to sit down. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked, trying to smile.
She knew why I was there. On her ward rounds earlier that evening she had invited me to come if I needed it. Now she asked, “Would you like me to ring the Newborn Unit and find out how your baby is?”
“Yes, yes, please.”
The baby was fine, was sleeping.
Terror eased back to the same gnawing anxiety that followed me everywhere then. As I lay back down, it did too. It lay awake for hours with me, and filled my dreams until the next feverish awakening.
Daylight brought a sunny August morning. My baby, due in November, was over a day old, and I had yet to hold her. At breakfast in the dining room, women with massive bellies moaned to each other. “I’ve been here with my feet up for a month and nothing’s happened,” one said. “I’m going home where I’m needed.”
Food stuck on the lump that had formed in my throat. I wanted to scream at them to be quiet, to say I would gladly swap places with them, would sit still for three months if it would bring my baby back to safety inside me. I fled from the dining room in tears.
Later, my husband and our toddler arrived and we went to the Newborn Unit. My husband held Melanie* in his arms and gestured, saying “See the baby.” She turned, not to her sister, but to the boy in a neighbouring cot, with his head in a Perspex box – a box I later discovered contained oxygen. He looked like a baby. Melanie’s sister didn’t. She looked like a miniature old woman. Her face was bruised and puffy, her skin dark pink and covered in downy hair. A hat on her tiny head held in place the tubes that helped her breathe. More tubes provided the food she needed, which wasn’t the milk I expressed several times a day. That would be needed soon, the nurses said, but for now she lived on intravenous Total Parenteral Nutrition, a mixture of electrolytes and minerals. I had no idea then what electrolytes were (I later learned they are substances that conduct electricity, including in the body: sodium, potassium, chloride and bicarbonate). I was equally bewildered by the monitors that flashed and pinged above our baby. Wires entwined her, connecting sensors on her body to these monitors that displayed her heart and breathing rates and the oxygen levels in her blood.
It wasn’t my fault. Nurses said so, doctors said so. But that day, I still didn’t believe them. When a friend came to visit, having driven a hundred miles, I thought she was passing through the city on her way somewhere else. I couldn’t believe she’d come to see me, I couldn’t understand why she’d brought flowers, and even less why she’d given me a card that read, “Congratulations on the birth of your baby.” I’d done nothing to deserve congratulations.
That evening, near eight o’ clock, I went back up to the Newborn Unit. The Intensive Care room was full of nurses at shift change. Someone showed me to a waiting room. I stood feeling embarrassed, as if I should have known, shouldn’t have been such a nuisance.
A nurse appeared in the doorway. “I’m Theresa,” she said, “and you’re Lolo’s* mum aren’t you?” She explained that in the past premature babies had all their physical needs met in hospital, but the experience left them bad-tempered on getting home. She explained how babies needed to be touched and held. She told me about containment holding, where the parent places both hands on the baby in the incubator. She explained that massage helped babies realise touch wasn’t just needles and pain, and she told me about kangaroo care, when the baby is held on the parent’s chest.
“Would you like to hold Lolo?” she asked.
“Oh,” I said, thinking she would show me how to containment hold, “yes.”
Theresa knew better, and led me to a chair by the incubator. It took two nurses to carry my baby over. She weighed 1.1 kilos (two pound, six and three quarter ounces), so it wasn’t her massive bulk that created the challenge, but all the wires and tubes. They placed her upright on my chest, showed me how to hold her and covered us with a blanket. With my baby against my chest, the part of me that was missing had been found again. I felt her tiny feathery movements, the warmth of her fragile body against my own, and among all the hospital odours I could smell her wonderful baby aroma. I was a mother again. I could breathe again, relax, let tears flow.
*Names have been changed to protect my children’s privacy.
A Kangaroo Cuddle
Read My Other Hubs on Premature Babies
- The Benefits of Kangaroo Care for Your Premature Baby
Some of the benefits of Kangaroo care for both mother and premature baby while in Neonatal Intensive Care, and a description of Kangaroo Care and its origins. - How Massage Can Help You And Your Premature Baby
Baby massage for a premature baby has many differences to massage for a full term baby. It has many benefits for both baby and mother, including enhanced bonding. - Why It's Not Your Fault That Your Baby Is Born Premature
Many mothers feel guilty after the birth of their premature baby, and think that they must be at fault. This article will let you know you are not alone if you have these feelings and show you how to get the emotional support you need.
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Thank you for reading my hub and I’m glad you enjoyed it. It’s great to hear your daughter is doing so well. My daughter is 11 now and very lively and positive about life. Coincidentally she also had fairly bad cradle cap, around her due date. She was back in hospital at the time and the consultant was very relaxed about it and said he reckoned it came about because parents were too anxious about scrubbing their babies’ heads. I have no idea if his theory was true, but his relaxed attitude helped me not to worry about it!
Thank you too for telling me about your wife, I will take a look for her posts.
Melovy this very touching hub as brought tears to my eyes. I have four children now and had 4 miscarriages so motherhood held some very raw emotions for me. I remember the first time I held my son, my first born, after having been told I'd never have children. You have brought back lovely memories of the first hours of my now 16 year old, 6 ft cheeky young lad sitting a history exam as I write. Can't wait for him to come home saying "Yea, A* for sure"! Thanks again and delighted to hear your little one is perfect.
Hello Mary,
Thank you for reading my hub and for your comment. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I can imagine that it must have been a very wonderful feeling to hold your son after what you went through.
This is an incredibly heartfelt and moving hub, quite possibly the best description I've ever read of what being the mother of a fragile preemie baby feels like. You brought tears to my eyes until the final paragraph which was so breathtakingly lovely: "With my baby against my chest, the part of me that was missing had been found again. I felt her tiny feathery movements, the warmth of her fragile body against my own, and among all the hospital odours I could smell her wonderful baby aroma. I was a mother again. I could breathe again, relax, let tears flow."
What a wonderful testament to the power of human touch and love. If you, the mother felt that way, just imagine how being in her mother's embrace affected tiny Lolo. The ability to comprehend words is trivial compared to the universal ability to feel love regardless of age, and nothing is more special than a mother's love.
Welcome to Hub Pages and thanks so much for sharing your personal experience here. Am voting this hub up, useful, awesome and beautiful.
Thank you Happyboomernurse, for such a wonderful comment. If what I wrote brought tears to your eyes, your second paragraph did the same for me. What you write there is exactly why I Kangaroo Care was so important to me. When I saw my tiny baby with all those wires and tubes and the drip needles in her miniscule arms and legs my first thought was that this would permanently traumatize her, so to know that KC would alleviate that was such a Godsend - and it felt so good. I later read that mothers often describe it as being the nearest they get to completing their pregnancy and it did feel like that.
I love this that you wrote:
"The ability to comprehend words is trivial compared to the universal ability to feel love regardless of age, and nothing is more special than a mother's love.”
More on love - last night Lolo and I were watching her sister and friends perform in a school show, and at the end the head-teacher talked about how much he loved the pupils in the school and it was so obvious the pupils felt the same way. In fact some shouted it out. It was awe inspiring, and, as you say, universal.
What a happy ending to this preemie story you've written- the thought of your family together at a school show, surrounded by love and joy. It made my heart sing. Thanks for sharing that prescious moment.
My nephew and his wife have an adorable little girl who was born at the right time but her heart had only one chamber. It is supposed to separate into 3. She is a year old now and still hooked up to monitors and tubes and will be until she is two. She has had more surgeries at one year than I have at nearly 50 years old. Her mommy wondered what she had done wrong. She didn't drink or smoke during her pregnancy. Why did this happen? Who knows but that little girl is a trooper and so strong. She has made it through so much and handles it so well.
It is good that there was something to help ease your plight. I am glad you made it through and have your beautiful daughter in your life.
+ Darlene
Hi Dardia,
Thank you for your kind comment. I feel very fortunate because although we were back to the hospital a few times in the first year or so, my daughter is generally a happy and healthy child. If anything I sometimes wonder if that early fight for life has left her with a deeper appreciation of life as people have often commented how happy she is.
What your nephew and his wife are going through sounds difficult, but it’s great their little girl handles it so well. It is stunning to see how babies do just handle it, I was constantly amazed at how Lolo just quietly coped with all the interventions. If your nephew’s wife still feels guilty then maybe my hub: "Why it’s not your fault your baby was born premature," would help; even though hers was born at term I expect the feelings are very similar.
Thank you for sharing your journey with your daughter. I'm so happy to read the happy ending! Sending your daughter well wishes for a happy, healthy life. My daughter was born 3 weeks early (26 years ago)and she was kept in the hospital a few extra days for jaundice...I was a wreck...I can't imagine how you felt. Way to go Mom! :))
HI Sunshine625,
Thank you for your kind comment, and your wishes for my daughter. She is generally a happy and very active kid, so we are very fortunate.
Melovy,
OMG, how "me loves" HubPages... how about this? Sunnie Day introduces me to Happyboomernurse who introduces me to YOU... and now I am having a "sunny day!"
As a teacher of nurses, this cries out to me to be shared, with your permission. What a heartfelt and beautiful account of your miracle! I had the chills from beginning to the end and am so happy that you have your beautiful daughter... there is no greater bond. Your perspective is essential for us as compassionate nurses to remember, as we share our hearts with you and your babies more than you may even know. Voted UP & UABI, mar.
Hi Marcoujor,
Thank you so much for your lovely comment. I am very touched. Of course you have my permission to share this with anyone you think it will help, or who is in a position to help others - that’s truly what I most want for this article: that is will help others get through this.
And I definitely can relate to what you write about nurses, as I hope comes across in this and the other hubs I’ve written on premature babies. It was the compassionate care of nurses that got me through, of that I have no doubt. The hospital my daughter was born in was blessed with some nurses that were closer to angels, and who knew exactly what was needed. One night after I’d been holding my baby, I longed to kiss her, but because of all the scrubbing-up we had to do before we touched her, I thought a kiss was probably out of bounds. The nurse must have read my mind: as she went to take Lolo from me, she said, “Mummy, give baby a kiss.”
In fact, your comment has inspired me - I think I will write a hub about some of those wonderful nurses, there were so many of them. Thank you.
Melovy,
I am so thrilled to read your feedback. I got the feeling that your nurses were as beautiful to you as the nurses I teach are... I am sharing this with many of my students, along with your beautiful comments.
So, Carey, Joan, Selva, Priscilla,Courtney, Jackie and EVERYONE ELSE who works with other patient populations in an equally compassionate/ giving manner, this is ALL for YOU....... thanks, mar!
Oh my, I've got tears in my eyes. Am so glad this is being passed forward to nurses who do need this kind of information and feedback. It will help them become even more compassionate and understanding.
Melovy, am so glad to hear you are inspired to write a hub about some of the nurses who took care of you and your prescious baby.
Marcoujor, May God bless you and all your students so that they can go forward into the difficult but rewarding profession of nursing with compassion in their hearts, knowing that even the small things they do on a daily basis can make a difference in the lives of those they care for.
how moving....how touching.....how emotional
@Marcoujor,
Thank you for your reply, and to you and your students for the work you do; it is so very important. And thanks also for the vote up and feedback, I forgot to say that in my first reply.
@Happyboomernurse,
Thank you for introducing us! I think what you say about making a difference is so, so important. It’s when we know that what we do makes a difference to someone else that it feels so worthwhile. I felt that when I held Lolo that first time, when Theresa told me her oxygen saturations had risen because she was so relaxed when I was holding her. This is something all mothers of premature babies need to know - that they matter - because it can be easy to feel helpless in that situation. And as you say even the small things nurses do can make such a difference.
Hello Alice,
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment. I am glad you felt moved by it.
It brought tears to my eyes! Thanks for sharing your special story. One never knows when those little buggers are going to arrive-seems some are more eager than others. So happy to read that all ended well. Sometimes the premies are the ones that end up the strongest and loudest as they grow up! Take care and glad to see you've joined the Hubpages community! Welcome.
Thank you very much for your comment Denise, and for the welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Melovy, this real life account is so touching.It's heartening to read that your daughter is hale and hearty now and that is all that matters. I wish and pray she stays healthy and blossoms into a lovely woman who admires and adores you, for all that you went through, to bring her up.
Welcome to hubpages.
Rajan Jolly, Thanks for reading and commenting. And thank you too for your kind wishes for my daughter. She is a lovely girl, kind, thoughtful, full of fun. (Not that I’m biased!:))
So glad your story continues as it does. Childbirth totally engulfs our lives and when we are faced with additional fears, it is at time overwhelming. Three times I have faced uncertainty surrounding birth. One time was my own daughter, the second and third have been with my grandsons.
To say I know how you feel now that you have traveled through the difficulty would be wrong for I cannot say that. I can say, I admire your willingness to share this personal, fearful time. Blessings to you and your daughter as each day unfolds.
Hi pstrauble48,
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment. I agree that childbirth engulfs our lives. At the time it’s hard to think about much else. I hope that your daughter and grandsons are doing well now.
I particularly appreciate the sentiment you express here: "To say I know how you feel now that you have traveled through the difficulty would be wrong for I cannot say that.” It’s so easy to say to someone, “I understand how you feel,” but so much more honest so say what you just did. We don’t actually need to understand what someone is feeling to empathise, and I can feel your empathy. Thank you.
I was very, very fortunate to have such wonderful support from the nurses who looked after my daughter, and that she was so well taken care of. Thank you for your blessings, and blessings to you and your family too.
Absolutely, MeLovy....my eldest grandson has defied all odds and continues to be on the planet; my baby grandson is doing very well...as with each of us, every day my daughter is on the planet is a gift...she has been told by doctors she should not still be here...but defying all odds she is....and yes, o, those nurses are a wondrous thing...I will keep reading to hear more....
Pstraubie,
"every day my daughter is on the planet is a gift” - I now disagree with what you wrote in your first comment - you do understand how I feel! That is exactly it, and has been the way I felt from a few days after her birth.
Thank you for your lovely contribution to this hub.
What a beautiful, touching article. I pray that both of your children experience happy, healthy futures.
Hello Daisy,
Thank you for your kind comment. I am pleased you enjoyed the hub. Thank you for your kind wishes for my daughters. Lolo has done amazing well considering her early start in life, and is usually healthier than her sister.
I did kangaroo care with my boys and loved it! Thanks for thr great hub!
Hi Kelley,
Thanks for your comment, and glad you enjoyed the hub. Were your boys also born early?
Lovely hub. You had me in tears at the end! Kangaroo care is amazing, and so vital. My cousin did it with her premature twins, born at 29 weeks. They are 5 and both doing fine now. Glad to hear your daughter is too.
Hi Moon Daisy,
I’m glad to hear your cousin got to hold her premature babies too and that they are doing fine. Coincidentally I have just published a hub on what to expect as your premature baby grows up. Thanks so much for your kind comment.
Spirit Whisperer Level 6 Commenter 11 months ago
This is a great hub and it held me captive all the way to the end. One of my daughters was premature but she has grown into a beautiful healthy young woman She also had a bad case of cradle cap and my wife had to stain hospital with her while that was treated. It came right down over her eyes. My wife treats many women during pregnancy and prepares them for labour pain free childbirth. She writes under the name Sister Mary. She has written about her own personal experiences and the work she does to help. Thank you.