Women and Infants

I love my hospital, I had my son there and of course I had my twins there. I watched them nurse Lillian to health and of course I lost Genevive there.

I never realized what an amazing place Women and infants was until that happened. They were wonderful at coaching us when Genevive passed away. And amazing at putting up with us the rest of Lillian's NICU stay. Because I sure was a paranoid difficult Mom. I am not sure what happened, we lost her and a switch in my head flicked. Now I knew a baby could die and my entire approach was different in the NICU. I wanted to be hands on, I wanted to take every opportunity I could to do anything and everything, because you never know. In an instant Lily could have died too.

I felt the hospital was very accommodating to this need. And also went out of their way in other aspects too. The heading doctor on the team came and talked to me every morning when I came in, just to let me know Lily was doing fantastic. We only ever saw them before when there was a big issue. We still see her to this day at the followup clinic. I also got a lot more reassurance from the nurse practitioners as well. Lillian's primary nurse just seemed to understand me, we fit together very well. She let me be hands on and walked me through stuff, instead of just doing it herself, which certainly would have been faster. Anyhow I am rambling.

The point of this post is I am excited I go to volunteer services today!! Now I already did a presentation at the hospital. I spoke about our experience and presented my pamphlet. That got such an awesome response. I was invited to be on a new committee that was forming on palliative (end of life) care in the NICU. I really enjoy being on the committee, it is my way of healing from Genevive's death. Through my experience I can help other parents who find themselves in our situation.

We are also planning to have me do my presentation again sometime in the fall, but 6 times in a couple weeks period at different break times so that more hospital personnel can come. And I guess for this kind of presentation they get some sort of credit for going.

And we decided that since I am in and out a lot, and likely to do more. I need to go have my tb testing done and stuff like that and get a badge, woo! So when I walk in security won't look at me sideways.

Hey tomorrow I will post my pamphlet in case anyone here is interesting in reading it. Or even sending a copy to their local hospital *wink*