Soon…soon is never really soon enough?!
Soon…soon is never really soon enough?! Soon with a question mark is actually more appropriate. You can add so much to the question:
Soon? How soon? Soon, as in tomorrow, next week, next month?
These are the questions we find ourselves asking. We use this word during each visit, ask a question using this word during each rounding, wonder this question while talking to family and friends.
Soon has so many qualifiers in NICU2. When we received the call while driving to the GHS NICU for our first visit since Sarah’s discharge, we heard a few magic words…”George and Henry have been moved from NICU 1 to NICU 2.” We cried in jubilation. We celebrated a major milestone moving from a true ICU to a new place of new unknowns. We wondered, how soon?
As I talked to my father on the phone, I found myself explaining…defining the word soon using a logical approach. I shared the information the doctors shared earlier that morning as we wondered the same questions. We learned about feeding volume, stomach capacity, body temperature, and the value of a baby making it past 38 weeks. We learned what it meant to truly be a premie, and how NICU2 is about transitioning our boys from premies to infants.
Soon could mean two weeks…until they can sleep in their cribs at home. Soon could mean they can take a bottle for each each feeding, every three hours for two days. Right now…soon seems so far away when George and Henry can only have one bottle a day. The net calorie effect of drinking a bottle completely offsets the intake of that bottle, thus the rest of the day’s feedings come from a tube. The goal is to remove the later for the sooner by growing their tummies so they can consume enough nutrients creating a net positive after each bottle.
Soon…it seems so far away. Not just in time but geographical distance. Far enough away to make late night phone calls to the night nurse hoping for a positive report. Close enough to realize another family could benefit from your Ronald McDonald spot, putting nightly routines with Rosebud as a priority over proximity. Tough choices, decisions, hoping each decision will get us closer.
Soon…when will it be here? Will I wish away the moments, slivers of time, ounces of seconds spent during their first bottles, first diaper change, the first time you learn how to change a onesie tangled in wires, iv lines, and feeding tubes. Soon…to be reminded of our blessings…two healthy boys. Reminded of the magnificent care. Remind that not all NICU stories are the same. Who am I to be selfish for my “not soon enough.”
Soon is getting closer…but I am selfish, I want these cribs filled with George and Henry, sooner rather than later!