I recently saw this commercial not too long ago. There was no talking in the version I saw and couldn’t read the words fast enough because I was so taken by the images I saw. My Seanie was premature. He was due on December 27th and I had an emergency C-section on November 2nd. He was in an incubator and under the Bilirubin lights. So he would look like he was sunbathing with the little mask over his little eyes like in the commercial.
I saw this commercial again last night and this morning I searched YouTube to find it. In that search, I saw this 2nd version the commercial. So, I’ve cried all morning watching these commercials over and over. When he was in the NICU, I never cared to think about the type of diapers he wore. But I see this commercial and the amount of care taken to manufacture them, I vaguely remember seeing the boxes of Huggies when I was there. When he was there.
A person will never forget the time they have spent at the hospital with their baby in the NICU. This commercial reminded me of that clearly. Sean was born at 32 weeks gestation, two months early, and was in the NICU for 31 days. He did not come home until December 3rd. To this day, I tell everyone I tell that he was a preemie that this was the longest month of my life. 15 years later, that is still the case for me. I couldn’t hold him right away. After maybe a week, he could be out of the incubator for 20 minutes. I fell to a routine immediately when I had to leave the hospital and he had to stay.
I still lived with my parents back then and was unable to drive after my C-section. My Mom would take me to the hospital before she went to work. I would get there at about 7 am. My dad, who was already working when I was dropped off to the hospital would get out at around four and pick me up. I would spend time with my parents talking about Sean and would go to his dad’s house who was just getting out of work. After he would eat and take a quick shower, we would go back up to the hospital.
Once there, he would hold Sean for the 20 minutes and then put him back into the incubator. He would then go to the family waiting room and sleep. I would just sit in the glider and glide back and forth while staring at my baby in the incubator. I would do this until about midnight when I would leave Sean and wake his dad up so we could go home. I would cry every night leaving the hospital. It was horrible to have to leave him! Even though I knew he was getting excellent care and I would be back in about seven hours, it was still very difficult for me.
It was about two weeks after he was born that he could regulate his body temperature a little bit more, a nurse told me about “kangaroo care.” She told me that this was very good for the baby. She told me that I would need to wear a button down shirt and I could hold the baby “skin to skin” for as long as I wanted. I absolutely loved this! I would recline the glider as the nurses would put up screens around me. Whenever the nurse would get him out incubator and place him on my chest, all of the numbers on his monitor would normalize and he was calmed.
I’ve told Sean this story so many times over the years, I tell him how I’d feel his soft baby hair on my chin and neck. I would always have the nurse place him on my right side. I could feel all of his little ribs when I’d place my left hand his back and cradled his feet with my right hand about even with my armpit. He was SO tiny! We would lay like this for hours! Sometimes I would fall asleep too. I loved it!
Sean was 4 lbs. 11 oz. when he was born so he was the “big baby” in the NICU. He had tons of hair. I stuck to my routine every day, I remember a nurse coming up to me and telling me that they wanted me to stay home because they wanted to hold my baby because he had hair! I kind of laughed and told her that I wanted to hold my baby!
I changed a total of three diapers in those 31 days. His umbilical cord fell out when I was not there. I felt that I was missing so much of my baby that I really cherished the “kangaroo care” time we shared! I remember that I put him in an outfit I had gotten from my shower. I thought for sure it would fit him because it was a 0 to 3 month onesie. He was swimming in it! I had to buy special preemie clothes for him that he wore for a pretty long time.
I would include pictures here but they are all packed away with renovations going on right now at my house. I’m sure I will write about his time in the NICU again so I will include them when I do. So, ANOTHER commercial has made me cry but this I KNOW is NOT my undiagnosed PBA. Rather, it completely reminded me of the 31 days we survived at the NICU.