Mama Knows Best
Mama Knows Best
By Kimberly Reyes
There is a moment as you walk down the frigid hospital hall listening to the sound of your newborn being comforted by a stranger that you feel like the absolute worst mother in the world. It doesn’t matter that you’ve just spent 12 hours sat in an uncomfortable chair by their bedside, or that you haven’t slept for more than two hours at a time in months because you are trying to pump and keep up your milk supply with no baby in sight. None of it matters in that moment. You feel helpless and you feel like you’ve failed. But the reality is that nothing, and I mean nothing, can be further from the truth.
You are and will always remain your child’s most important advocate. No parade of doctors, specialists, nurses or staff will ever compare to you being that child’s first safe place. Whether your womb was home for the full 40 or just a mere 22 weeks, that bond has power beyond imagination and you must never let that be discounted. Trust your hunches, voice your concerns and ask questions until you are blue in the face. Experts and caretakers are an incredible blessing, but when it comes down to it there are moments where the old adage is true and “mama really does know best.”
My daughter spent 109 days in the NICU before we were able to take her home. I remember the first few days being a whirlwind of confusion and helplessness. I watched doctors and nurses come and go, running tests and taking readings off machines that I barely understood the function of. I felt useless, here I was this child’s mother and she didn’t need me. I had no idea how wrong I was. She needed me and arguably more so than at any point in her life.
We had been in NICU for only a few days when my daughter's blood count dropped to a level that would indicate that she required a transfusion. I was informed that it would begin soon and run for a period of two hours or so. I was told it was a standard procedure and shouldn’t be alarmed. About 15 minutes into the transfusion I peered into the incubator to check on her and was shocked to see her entire arm had turned a bluish red. I yelled for the nurse who came and immediately shut down the machine running the blood into her. It turned out that her vein had collapsed. I watched as she was given 9 injections around the site of the bleed, her tiny translucent forearm not even 2 inches in length. It was in that moment that I knew what needed to be done. I realized that in a busy NICU unit with over 40 babies on the floor at any given time there was no way for her to be monitored constantly. It would be up to us as parents to be eagle eyed and never allow for a repeat of what I’d just witnessed.
I resolved to learn what every machine did. What each line running to and from her body connected to; what the numbers running across beeping monitors meant and which reading I should be alarmed by and which ones were her baseline normal. She would never again undergo any treatment ranging from transfusion to scan or test without myself or her father present. We asked for the packaging and full list of ingredients for anything that she was going to ingest or be injected with. We monitored the result of daily blood screenings and asked questions if anything seemed out of the abnormal. I asked to be furnished with the full text of any medical studies a doctor referred to and read the text in its entirety for myself. Armed with a wealth of knowledge and the unmatched instinct of a mother I became my daughter’s fiercest advocate. I know in my heart of hearts this has made all the difference in how well she has done.
Know that feeling helpless and lost is normal. But also know that in knowledge lies great power. You are your tiny warrior’s first home and most important advocate. Arm yourself with all the information available. Do the research, ask questions until you feel comfortable. Do not let the titles and degrees intimidate you into silence. We are the voice of our little ones until they grow big enough to find their own.
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