On Christmas Eve, I made my first return visit to the NICU since the boys were discharged five years ago.
It's funny that it was so difficult for me to imagine going, especially because I have been back to that hospital several times since then. I even had Jack there for goodness sake. In all of that time, though, I avoided that part of the hospital like the plague.
The anticipation of the visit made my stomach a wreck on the days leading up to the 24th. I wanted to back out so many times, it was ridiculous. But I didn't. I told myself that my desire to avoid that place was the most important reason for me to face my demon head on. It didn't hurt that I had my friend from the preemie board meeting me there to help with my confidence.
The night before, my friend, K, let me know that she had called to tell them to expect us.
(As an aside, I still have the NICU number saved in my phone's contact list. It has this way of jolting me when I least expect it, and yet I can't bring myself to delete it.) K told me the names of the nurses who would be there. The names were vaguely familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn't say for sure if they were
our nurses. The very people who helped make my boys well enough to come home, people I spent over a hundred days with, seemed to be erased from my memory. (There are a lot of holes in what I remember from that time. Some moments are etched in my brain for eternity, but many of the day to day reality is long gone. It's a strange sensation.)
I felt the same familiar feeling when I got to
that turn in the road, the one about five minutes away from the hospital, my last opportunity to turn around before the hospital. I had to wrestle with myself every single time I went there back in those days. Every day I fought the overwhelming urge to turn around and go home. It was at that point that my courage faltered, the facade cracked ever so slightly. Every day I managed to grit my teeth and keep driving.
I wasn't prepared for that particular panic to flood my body last week, but there it was anyway. I guess I should have expected it; I was going back to the place that holds so many terrifying memories, after all. This time, like the others, I kept driving.
I managed to park in the same parking lot, pass through the same halls. I thought about the woman at the front desk who would wave us in after hours and tell us she was praying for our babies. I thought about that creaky elevator that emptied right outside of the NICU...I passed it by. I focused on my feet and willed them to keep walking.
In the end, my anxiety was for naught. When K and I got up to the NICU, it was really too busy for us to actually talk to any of the nurses. (I hate to admit it, but I was so relieved. I'm not sure if I would have handled that well.) One side of the NICU, the level 1 nursery--the place we spent so much time, was closed. The secretary took us over there to drop off our gifts. K had candy for the nurses, some clothing for the babies, and books for both the parents and the babies. I managed to find some gently used picture books to donate.
I also took our Christmas card, thinking that maybe they'd remember us from the picture. In some ways, we still resemble the two shell shocked parents the knew five years ago. In more ways, we are nothing like the people they came to know back then. But, maybe they've wondered about our two little men...us, I don't know. Maybe our card would show them that we are okay. We're happy. We're thriving.
As I awkwardly stood there listening to K and the secretary chat, I looked around at this place that was our home away from home for over 100 days. There was our corner of the room near the window. I looked at the two empty isolettes in our old spots. Memories tugged at the recessives of my mind. I flashed to Jason lying there under his blue billi lights. Heard the swoosh of his vent. I pictured Is.aac changing Sh.awn's preemie diaper. The room was so, so little. No one was in it, and it was still tiny. How had I never noticed that?
It didn't feel that way while we were there, that's for sure. Instead it felt massive. The space mirrored my emotions at that time--it as vast as the pain and guilt in my heart.
I like that the NICU seemed small now.
I went back through my archives when I got home. I read through those months, remembered things I had forgotten. I shook my head at my naivete. I cried over the hurt and fear and anger that oozed from my words. I told the me of five years ago to hold on, it will be okay. She will be okay.
Because it is okay.
More than okay.
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