We spent 120 days in the hospital, 109 of them visiting our baby in the NICU. I don't know that I can fully explain what those months felt like, but I'm going to do my best.
Unless you've lived through a long NICU stay, I'm not sure it's possible to understand. But maybe if you're reading this while sitting beside an incubator, pumping in the middle of the night, or wondering why you feel so alone because it seems like no one truly understands what you're living through, maybe this will help you feel a little less alone.
Five years ago, our journey into parenthood wasn't easy. We struggled with unexplained infertility and multiple early miscarriages. After years of trying, heartbreak, and countless questions, we conceived our first daughter through IUI.
It was during that season of trying to become parents that we first started making changes to our diet and lifestyle. We wanted to give ourselves the best chance possible, and little by little, we began questioning the products we used, the food we ate, and the way we cared for our bodies.
Then our daughter was born. Motherhood changed everything.
What started as a few healthier swaps turned into a much deeper journey. I became passionate about learning how to nourish my body, support my family's health naturally, and continue healing after years of infertility. I immersed myself in holistic living in a way I never had before.
A few years later, we decided we wanted another baby.
This time, I hoped so badly to conceive naturally. I wanted to know my body could do it. More than that, I wanted the chance to rewrite my first experience. To take everything I had learned since becoming a mother and bring this baby into the world in a way that felt more natural and aligned with everything I believed.
It took more than three years. Then one day, I looked down and saw two pink lines. I couldn't believe it. I was pregnant. Naturally.
I had spent so much time worrying about getting pregnant and staying pregnant that once I made it past those early weeks that had always ended in loss, I finally exhaled. In my mind, we had made it.
Going into labor early wasn't even a possibility in my brain. The NICU wasn't a possibility. I wasn't worried about prematurity. I was thinking about nesting. About preparing our home. About the home birth I had dreamed of. About meeting my baby peacefully in the comfort of our own home.
I absolutely loved being pregnant. I loved my changing body. I loved feeling her kick. I loved every single part of it.
Then, at around twenty-five weeks, I started leaking fluid. I tried convincing myself it was nothing. Eventually, after it didn't subside, I went to the hospital.
Then came the moment I never saw coming. At just 25 weeks and 3 days I was diagnosed with PPROM (preterm premature rupture of membranes). My water had broken. Everything changed in an instant.
Instead of preparing for the birth I had envisioned, I was told I would be admitted to the hospital and would stay there until my baby was born. I received steroid injections to help mature her lungs. I was started on antibiotics and magnesium. The plan was to keep me pregnant as long as possible.
Every decision seemed like it suddenly belonged to someone else. One of the hardest parts for me wasn't just the medical emergency. It was surrendering every bit of control I thought I had.
I had spent years researching pregnancy, nutrition, birth, and preparing for a natural delivery. Overnight, I found myself completely dependent on Western medicine.
People often assume that because a treatment may be necessary, it isn't emotionally difficult. It can be both. I understood why we were there. I understood that both me and my daughter needed help. That didn't make surrendering control any less painful.
Ten days later, during what was supposed to be my routine morning fetal stress test, everything changed again. Her heart rate kept dropping dangerously low before racing back up. Suddenly my room filled with doctors and nurses. People were running. Giving orders. Moving quickly.
Outside, a snowstorm was rolling in.
My husband had barely left my side the entire time I'd been admitted. The one time he left to grab a few things from home was the morning our daughter decided she couldn't wait.
I was rushed into an emergency C-section by myself. He raced back in the snow and arrived just as surgery was beginning. They wouldn't let him in.
At 26 weeks and 6 days, our daughter entered the world weighing just over two pounds. My placenta had detached from my uterus in a placental abruption, and afterward the doctor told me it had been "coming out in chunks." She also explained that my uterus had rotated and was facing completely backward, 180 degrees from where it should have been.
The relief that our baby was alive collided with a grief I wasn't prepared for. Because while everyone else saw a birth...I felt like I had lost one.
People celebrate when their baby is born. They get skin-to-skin. They nurse. They spend sleepless nights together. They bring their baby home.
Instead, I watched my daughter disappear into a room full of machines. I didn't meet her until hours later, after I was finally able to leave recovery. They wheeled me into the NICU on my stretcher, where all I could do was look at her through the walls of an incubator.
I couldn't hold my own baby for the first week of her life.
I recovered on the maternity floor surrounded by mothers and their healthy newborns. All day long, I could hear babies crying through the walls. Every few hours, I'd hook myself up to a breast pump to make milk for a baby who wasn't with me.
I made the trip to the NICU constantly, even though every step after my C-section hurt. It felt like my insides were going to fall out. I could barely stand up straight, and sitting in a chair beside her incubator was almost unbearable.
And when I finally was with her, it still wasn't as simple as picking up my baby.
I couldn't just scoop my child into my arms. I had to ask. I had to wait for care time. Then I waited until a nurse had a free moment. Every wire had to be carefully moved. Every tube had to stay exactly where it belonged. The chairs weren't comfortable. The monitors never stopped beeping. I could only hold my baby for as long they would allow. Every alarm made my heart stop because I never knew if this beep was routine or if something was actually wrong.
My nervous system never got a chance to settle.
I spent months learning what oxygen saturation numbers mean. What apnea is. What bradycardia is. What CPAP is. What every monitor is trying to tell you.
And all the while silently wondering if today will be the day we get the phone call we've been terrified of since the day she was born. People think the NICU is about keeping a baby alive. It is. But they don't realize what it does to the parents.
You don't get to parent your own baby the way you imagined. You visit your baby. You ask permission to hold your baby. You leave your baby behind every night. In the care of doctors and nurses. each of whom have different opinions and give different advice.
The best way I know how to explain it is this:
I had my baby three months early. She was still supposed to be inside me. Instead, she finished her development outside my body while I drove back and forth to the hospital every single day.
While I will always be incredibly grateful to the hospital and the medical team for helping keep my daughter alive, it was still a medical setting where I never truly felt comfortable.
Two things can be true at the same time. I can be profoundly grateful for the care that saved her life while also acknowledging that every instinct in my body was screaming that my baby was supposed to be at home with me.
The whole situation felt deeply unnatural. My mind understood why we were there, but my body didn't. Every maternal instinct I had was telling me to hold my baby, protect my baby, and keep her close. Instead, I had to stare at her from outside her incubator. I had to leave her behind every night. It went against every instinct, every expectation, and everything I felt I was created to do as her mother.
My life became pumping, sleeping, eating, and driving to the NICU. Eight pumping sessions a day. Every day. People thought I was obsessive. They didn't understand that pumping was one of the only things I actually had control over, and that it was completely necessary if I wanted to breastfeed when she came home. Breast milk was one of the greatest gifts I could give her after being born so early, so protecting my supply became non-negotiable.
Our daughter spent 109 days in the NICU. One hundred and nine days. People don't realize how long that is.
Support pours in at the beginning. Meals. Messages. Prayers. People check in. Then the weeks turn into months. Life moves on. The support naturally trickles. Bills still have to be paid. Work still has to get done. My older daughter still needs her mom. The world kept moving, even though mine had fully stopped.
I was still in the thick of it. Every morning I had to wake up and walk right back into the hardest thing I have ever lived through.
I was doing my best just to survive while living in a constant state of fight-or-flight. My nervous system was exhausted and it never got a chance to rest.
I also saw things no parent ever wants to see. I saw babies who don't make it home. I watched families receive devastating news. Even when it isn't your baby, your body absorbs that fear. Every day I was reminded how fragile life is.
Looking back, one of the things that surprised me most wasn't only the medical trauma. It was how misunderstood I felt.
People were excited. "I can't wait to snuggle her." "I can't wait to meet her." Meanwhile, all I could see was this tiny little baby, the size of a soda can, fighting for her life.
It wasn't that people were trying to be hurtful. I think many people simply couldn't understand the weight of what we were living because they'd never experienced anything like it.
There were moments when it felt like people wanted us to act like everything was okay because it made them more comfortable. I don't think it came from a place of malice. I think most people simple don't know what to do with someone else's trauma. It is easier to focus on a happy ending than to sit beside someone who is still living through the middle of the story.
In the midst of everything, both me and my husband and I did Emotion Code sessions which revealed something I hadn't considered. While I was consumed by the fear of losing our daughter, my husband had been carrying another fear the entire time. He was terrified he was going to lose me too, and felt completely helpless.
It was one of those moments that made me realize trauma affects everyone differently. We were living through the exact same experience, yet we were carrying different fears.
That realization also helped me understand something else. People who haven't lived through an experience like this often don't realize how deeply it changes you. Not because they don't care, but because they've never had to carry that kind of fear.
I don't mean that with resentment. It's just reality. Trauma changes you.
It changes your marriage. It changes your friendships. It changes what feels important. Some relationships become stronger. Others quietly fall apart.
People often think bringing your baby home is the finish line. For us, it was really the beginning.
Our daughter has been home for a little over two months now. Our nervous systems have finally started to settle, and life is beginning to feel a little more normal again. But we're still healing. We're still processing everything we lived through. Trauma doesn't disappear the day your baby leaves the NICU. It takes time, and that's okay.
If you're reading this while your baby is in the NICU, I'm so incredibly sorry. If I could describe this experience in one word, it would be brutal. There were moments I wondered how anyone could survive something so heavy.
But I also want you to know this: you will breathe again. The fear won't always be this loud. The weight won't always feel this crushing. And even if you can't see it today, I truly believe God is with you in every single moment. He never left us, even when it felt impossible to understand what He was doing.
Be patient with yourself. You lived through trauma. Give yourself permission to grieve, to process, and to heal at your own pace. There is no finish line for healing.
Thank you for reading our story. If it helped even one parent sitting beside an incubator feel a little less alone, then sharing it was worth it.
In my next post, I'll share more of the practical side of our NICU journey: the things we liked about our NICU, the things we wish had been different, the questions we learned to ask, what we personally researched along the way, and the topics I believe every NICU parent, especially those taking a more holistic approach, should spend time learning about.
My goal isn't to tell anyone what decisions to make, but simply to share what we learned in hopes that another family might feel a little more prepared than we did.