Love, Taryn
“Dear NICU Mama, When you feel alone, please remember we are all here cheering you on.
You might be carrying a very heavy heart right now. You may have panic attacks every time you enter or leave the hospital. You may feel overwhelmed, grateful, resentful, brave, and terrified all at once. You may be doing all you can to just get through the next moment. You may feel so very tired. You may wonder if the tears will ever stop. You may wonder if you’ll ever survive this journey.
It’s okay to both love your baby and hate the circumstance. Give yourself room to grieve the loss of what you’d hoped this time would be for your family. Allow yourself to feel many emotions at once. No one hopes for a NICU journey and it will challenge you in ways you’d never have imagined. You may feel your heart shatter into a million pieces but slowly, one by one, they will start to heal stronger than ever before. You can’t change what you’ve gone through but you can grow to love with a fiercer and truer heart. Hopefully one day you’ll see just how resilient you really are.”
Love,
Taryn
More of Taryn + Mabel’s NICU Journey:
“Our daughter Mabel was born on April 1st, 2022. It was not a funny April Fool’s joke. I had suffered a major internal hemmorage resulting in losing half of my blood count. An emergency c-section saved both of our lives and I required three blood transfusions. Knowing a stranger’s donation gave me a second chance at life gives me a profound sense of gratitude.
Mabel was born at 35 weeks gestation and was in the NICU for 15 days. She was diabetic, jaundiced, and had to learn to eat independently. She was fed by a NG tube for over a week. The days in the NICU were extremely challenging for my husband and me. No other family members were allowed in the NICU because of Covid restrictions. Our firstborn toddler son wasn’t able to meet his sister for two weeks. We felt very torn between both children and finding balance was very difficult. But we persevered and brought our baby girl home on Good Friday.
It has been a long long journey of emotional healing as I developed severe postpartum depression at 2 months PP. I required hospitalization at one point and the entire experience was devastating. But day by day we have found our way as a family of four. Our hearts are so full of love and gratitude and we have so much joy ahead of us.”
