How I dealt with the trauma

One of the questions that I saw number of times on the TOF facebook group that I am a member of is, how mothers are keeping it together after such a trauma and whether this trauma has affected their relationship with their partners?

I guess it is expected from parents of babies who has to spend some time in NICU to experience some degree of trauma, and this should not be confused with postnatal depression.

First thing that I felt when Leyla was taken to NICU was shock! Following that I tried to understand my baby’s condition, as much as possible. Once I came to the terms with the kind of condition that we were dealing with, the W questions had haunted me. ‘Why?’ ‘Why my baby?’ ‘Was it my fault?’ ‘What could I have done to cause this?’ ‘Was I not doing the correct things during my pregnancy?’ These questions repeated in my mind for months, day and night, even though all surgeons, doctors and nurses had explained, with logic, that it was not my fault. While these questions continued to repeat in my head, I felt useless! As a mother, I did not have control over the care for my baby, I felt like there was nothing I could do to help my baby. When I saw Leyla crying from pain, I cried with her.

Those parents with babies who are in NICU, there are two things that I would advise that you do to help your baby. First of all, read to your baby, whether it is your own book or a baby book, remember that your baby is used to hearing your voice, she always heard it while in your womb, so continuing to hear your voice should be comforting for your baby. Second of all, use the power of physical contact, whether through only being able to hold your baby’s hand or actually being able to give cuddles. I have experienced the power of physical contact with Leyla. One might say this was purely coincidental, however, I believe that it was the power of physical contact. I got the courage to cuddle my baby two weeks after she was born. Although I desperately wanted to cuddle the cutest thing I saw in my life, I was scared to hurt her due to the wires and other tubes attached to her. An amazing nurse in NICU encouraged me to pick her up and said “I promise it will help her heal”, and from that point on I used to hold Leyla all day, except when I went to express milk or go home. One week later Leyla was out of the incentive care unit, and a few days after that she was ready to come home with us!

Following such an unfair experience, one has to try to see the positives. I always thought that my husband and I were very close, however this traumatic experience has weirdly brought us even closer to each other. Before this experience, we did not really have a difficult period in our lives and there were times during arguments that we would say ‘if you are handling such minor issue like this, what are you going to do if we end up having a real problem?’ This experience proved that we handled it very well. We automatically teamed up, cried on each other’s shoulder and there was one obvious truth, there was no family member or friend who understood what we were feeling apart from each other.

From the minute I saw my daughter, I felt a huge love towards her and weird attachment. All I could think was that she was the most beautiful baby that I had ever seen. And I can confidently say that she is the strongest baby I have met. I admire my daughter for being so strong and smart despite all the procedures that she had. Therefore, at times when I am about to let go, I remind myself of this fact and this helps me realise that rather than being depressed about what my daughter has gone through, I am extremely proud of this strong little human being who is teaching me a lot about life and motherhood.

Finally one of the important things that this experience had helped me with is to be able to eliminate true friends from pretend friends. It was great to see the amount of support that we got from our family and friends, and we cannot thank them enough. I feel lucky that Leyla will be growing around all these loving people.