I came in last night and the nursing supervisor asked me if I had ever worked in the NICU. Uhhh.....nope, the regular newborn nursery but not the NICU. But hey, I'm up for anything as long as they understand that I can only do so much.
I get over there and they are greatful for the help. They have only 3 nurses on and have a total of 5 babies with 2 on the way. A drug withdrawal baby that screams a lot, a set of feeder & grower twins that were born at 33 weeks, a bruiser of a 10lb baby that aspirated meconium at birth and a set of 29 weeker twins that were born yesterday and were quite unstable (1 of who was about to be shipped to a tertiary hospital). The two on the way are a set of 34 week twins on CPAP.
While they worked I got to do the fun stuff....sit in a rocker and feed!! I ended up being there 5 hours and fed the drug baby twice and the feeder & grower set of twins once. What a joy to sit there in a chair and feed a baby for a job!! It felt like I was at a different place. I had to remind myself I was even at work!!
At the end I got to watch them give surfactant to the other 29 weeker. A pretty neat experience since I had heard about it lots of times but didn't really know how it was given. Also my nephew was given it at birth, so now I know what he went thru. He's quite the sick little boy (the 29 weeker, not my nephew) so hopefully he will do well, though I have my doubts I'm sad to say.
All in all it was a pretty neat experience. One I'll do again if asked!
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