Even now I cringe....
The most embarrassing moment I've had so far being a mom happened shortly after Luke's birth. A short timeline (which will be relevant to my story)
January 25th (Friday)
5:09AM - gave birth to Luke
all day - had visitors in and out of the room holding Luke
night time - sent Luke to the nursery to try to catch some ZZZ since we were up all night the night before. consequently, I only saw Luke for feedings and it was dark
January 26th (Saturday)
Morning - Luke was taken away for testing and sonograms on his belly and was gone several hours. We had more visitors to see Luke
Afternoon - released from the hospital to go home and had more visitors. Jaundice was mentioned by one.
January 27th (Sunday)
Morning - More visitors to see Luke
Afternoon - Richie notices the Jaundice and the Pediatrician was called
January 28th (Monday)
8AM - go straight to the pediatrician when it opened
11 AM - went to the hospital with him for jaundice
The point of this was there was precious little time where it was just the 3 of us where we could sit and stare and this beautiful little boy we created. Again, this will be relevant.
The first day in the hospital Luke was sequestered into a small room while they waited for his flu test to come back so that he wouldn't infect the other babies in the NICU (if he had it which he didn't). So the entire 24 hours he was in this incubator under the lights in a small room.
Richie and I got into a routine of coming in, washing our hands and heading straight to the room. You can see he was in a clear plastic bassinet with no signs on it to indicate his name.
The second 24 hours he was moved from the room to a corner of the NICU and only had to be on the blanket lights. Again, in an unlabeled bassinet. Most of the babies there that were in incubators had signs all over stating their name because they were in there for a while.
So day 3 starts and Richie and I are washing our hands and I happened to look over to see a cop standing by the bassinet and a nurse was there too. We finish up and walk over.
Me (to nurse): ummm what's going on?
Nurse: well we have to run some more tests so the cop is here to make sure we get there safely. It's part of the procedures so people can't steal babies.
Me (to nurse): oh. Ok. -- I look down in bassinet
Me (internal monologue) um am I crazy? This kinda doesn't look like my baby. I don't remember his cheeks being that chubby. But there's all that dark hair and he's swaddled so I can't really tell. This is where he's been for 24 hours so it's gotta be him.
Me (to swaddled baby): hey buddy. Mommy missed you so much.
I proceed to kiss his face and nuzzle him. At this point Richie walks up and begins kissing him too. I look at Richie to see if he says anything and he doesn't say anything so I begin to doubt myself.
Me (internal monologue): I mean it looks like my baby I guess. All swaddled babies kinda look like each other right? The nurse is new so I don't know her name and she doesn't know me but when we left last night this is where Luke was.
I'm still feeling uneasy because I'm not totally sure and the bassinets are not labeled. I don't want to seem like a crazy lady and straight up ask the nurse if this is my baby. I still look over at Richie and he's just staring at me. The baby is swaddled so I can't see his ankle name tag
I look around for the binder that has his chart in it just to confirm but no charts are in sight. so I begin asking the nurse questions:
Me: so what are his numbers at this morning?
Nurse: numbers? What do you mean? (she was new and it was after the shift change so I assumed she wasn't up to speed yet)
Me: his bilirubin number?
Nurse: o i'm not sure. I'd have to check his chart.
Me: umm ok. Well what testing are you doing then?
Nurse: a swallow test because his lips are turning blue when he eats.
Me: really? since when? I've never noticed that. hmmm. That's odd. Well I have some milk here that I pumped at home.
Nurse: oh. ok well let me check your card. (the give you a card with your name and your child's name. They match it with the child's ankle name tag to ensure the right baby gets the right milk).
I pull the card out and she looks at it and she immediately gets all awkward and at that moment I KNEW that it wasn't my baby.
Nurse: umm this isn't your baby.
Me: (I know I started sounding panicky now and my voice is speaking way too loudly for the NICU) WELL WHERE IS MY BABY???
Nurse: i'm not really sure. Let me ask.
Turns out they moved him to the less intensive NICU on a different floor for the remaining 8 hours but no one bothered to call and tell us that. The nurse offered to walk with us to the other floor to show us the way. The entire time I was fighting the urge to cry. I was beyond mortified that I didn't even recognize that I was kissing and loving on a different baby. What kind of mother doesn't recognize her own baby??? I was already extremely hormonal from just having a baby and still in pain and still on pain meds and therefore I wasn't entirely in my right mind. I don't know how I held it together while we went to the other floor. You could tell the nurse was super uncomfortable and I could just imagine the story she would tell about us. But beyond all that I just felt like I was the worst mother in the world partly because of a situation when we left the hospital (that's a different blog story!), partly because I didn't recognize the signs of jaundice and consequently we didn't catch it early enough, and to top it off I didn't even recognize my own kid. I cried (huge surprise) when I finally saw my handsome little man again. I cried partly because I was happy to see him but 95% of the reason I cried was because I felt like such a terrible mom.
When I discussed it with Richie he said that he was like me and thought that he didn't remember Luke looking like that but that he just assumed it was him. After all, we really hadn't had a ton of one on one contact with him yet. It brought me a tiny sliver of comfort knowing that at least Richie didn't recognize him either.
Looking back on it now, it still makes me cringe and feel horrible. Admitting the story a few weeks after the fact to my parents wasn't easy and when my dad laughed at the story because he found it funny, it made me cry. He immediately apologized because he could tell that I wasn't over it yet. But it's surprising how 6 months later I'M STILL NOT LAUGHING. Maybe I never will laugh at this story but I hope some day the sting goes out of the memory.
January 25th (Friday)
5:09AM - gave birth to Luke
all day - had visitors in and out of the room holding Luke
night time - sent Luke to the nursery to try to catch some ZZZ since we were up all night the night before. consequently, I only saw Luke for feedings and it was dark
January 26th (Saturday)
Morning - Luke was taken away for testing and sonograms on his belly and was gone several hours. We had more visitors to see Luke
Afternoon - released from the hospital to go home and had more visitors. Jaundice was mentioned by one.
January 27th (Sunday)
Morning - More visitors to see Luke
Afternoon - Richie notices the Jaundice and the Pediatrician was called
January 28th (Monday)
8AM - go straight to the pediatrician when it opened
11 AM - went to the hospital with him for jaundice
The point of this was there was precious little time where it was just the 3 of us where we could sit and stare and this beautiful little boy we created. Again, this will be relevant.
The first day in the hospital Luke was sequestered into a small room while they waited for his flu test to come back so that he wouldn't infect the other babies in the NICU (if he had it which he didn't). So the entire 24 hours he was in this incubator under the lights in a small room.
 |
| The First 24 hours in the NICU were spent this way |
The second 24 hours he was moved from the room to a corner of the NICU and only had to be on the blanket lights. Again, in an unlabeled bassinet. Most of the babies there that were in incubators had signs all over stating their name because they were in there for a while.
 |
| Second 24 hours were spent this way |
So day 3 starts and Richie and I are washing our hands and I happened to look over to see a cop standing by the bassinet and a nurse was there too. We finish up and walk over.
Me (to nurse): ummm what's going on?
Nurse: well we have to run some more tests so the cop is here to make sure we get there safely. It's part of the procedures so people can't steal babies.
Me (to nurse): oh. Ok. -- I look down in bassinet
Me (internal monologue) um am I crazy? This kinda doesn't look like my baby. I don't remember his cheeks being that chubby. But there's all that dark hair and he's swaddled so I can't really tell. This is where he's been for 24 hours so it's gotta be him.
Me (to swaddled baby): hey buddy. Mommy missed you so much.
I proceed to kiss his face and nuzzle him. At this point Richie walks up and begins kissing him too. I look at Richie to see if he says anything and he doesn't say anything so I begin to doubt myself.
Me (internal monologue): I mean it looks like my baby I guess. All swaddled babies kinda look like each other right? The nurse is new so I don't know her name and she doesn't know me but when we left last night this is where Luke was.
 |
| swaddled baby with lots of hair |
I look around for the binder that has his chart in it just to confirm but no charts are in sight. so I begin asking the nurse questions:
Me: so what are his numbers at this morning?
Nurse: numbers? What do you mean? (she was new and it was after the shift change so I assumed she wasn't up to speed yet)
Me: his bilirubin number?
Nurse: o i'm not sure. I'd have to check his chart.
Me: umm ok. Well what testing are you doing then?
Nurse: a swallow test because his lips are turning blue when he eats.
Me: really? since when? I've never noticed that. hmmm. That's odd. Well I have some milk here that I pumped at home.
Nurse: oh. ok well let me check your card. (the give you a card with your name and your child's name. They match it with the child's ankle name tag to ensure the right baby gets the right milk).
I pull the card out and she looks at it and she immediately gets all awkward and at that moment I KNEW that it wasn't my baby.
Nurse: umm this isn't your baby.
Me: (I know I started sounding panicky now and my voice is speaking way too loudly for the NICU) WELL WHERE IS MY BABY???
Nurse: i'm not really sure. Let me ask.
Turns out they moved him to the less intensive NICU on a different floor for the remaining 8 hours but no one bothered to call and tell us that. The nurse offered to walk with us to the other floor to show us the way. The entire time I was fighting the urge to cry. I was beyond mortified that I didn't even recognize that I was kissing and loving on a different baby. What kind of mother doesn't recognize her own baby??? I was already extremely hormonal from just having a baby and still in pain and still on pain meds and therefore I wasn't entirely in my right mind. I don't know how I held it together while we went to the other floor. You could tell the nurse was super uncomfortable and I could just imagine the story she would tell about us. But beyond all that I just felt like I was the worst mother in the world partly because of a situation when we left the hospital (that's a different blog story!), partly because I didn't recognize the signs of jaundice and consequently we didn't catch it early enough, and to top it off I didn't even recognize my own kid. I cried (huge surprise) when I finally saw my handsome little man again. I cried partly because I was happy to see him but 95% of the reason I cried was because I felt like such a terrible mom.
When I discussed it with Richie he said that he was like me and thought that he didn't remember Luke looking like that but that he just assumed it was him. After all, we really hadn't had a ton of one on one contact with him yet. It brought me a tiny sliver of comfort knowing that at least Richie didn't recognize him either.
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| See all that hair Luke has? |
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| all that embarrassment is exhausting |
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| Post crying and finally holding the RIGHT baby |
Looking back on it now, it still makes me cringe and feel horrible. Admitting the story a few weeks after the fact to my parents wasn't easy and when my dad laughed at the story because he found it funny, it made me cry. He immediately apologized because he could tell that I wasn't over it yet. But it's surprising how 6 months later I'M STILL NOT LAUGHING. Maybe I never will laugh at this story but I hope some day the sting goes out of the memory.
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