Heidi Cronkright | “13 Days That Changed Our Lives Forever”

In this special 100th episode of The Mama Making Podcast, host Jessica Lamb welcomes Heidi back on the podcast as she shares her emotional journey through her third birth experience and the challenges of the NICU. 

Heidi opens up about the anticipation before surgery, the overwhelming emotions of birth, and the struggles her newborn faced. They discuss the power of maternal intuition, the support from healthcare professionals, and the emotional resilience required in difficult moments. 

Heidi reflects on the healing process after bringing her baby home and the importance of sharing her story to support other moms navigating similar experiences.

You can connect with Heidi:

• Subscribe to her Substack: Wild Wives Club
• If you missed it, listen to Heidi's first birth in S1 E1: Intuitive Motherhood with Heidi

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a digital marketing company supporting makers, creatives, and small business owners with all things digital and design. 

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Transcript

Jessica Lamb (00:58)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast. If you're new here, I'm your host Jessica. If you're not new, then welcome back. Today I am very excited to put out this episode. It is our hundredth episode. Hundredth episode of the Mama Making Podcast, formerly the Baby Making Podcast. But I'm so excited to have reached this milestone. Thank you to everyone who has listened from day one.

or has done some backtracking, found us recently and listened to some of the episodes from beyond. but I wanted to do something a little bit special for the hundredth episode. So I'm very excited to be welcoming Heidi back to the podcast. Heidi was my very first guest. we met at a bachelorette party of all places and really hit it off.

But she shared her first birth story on the first episode of the podcast. So I thought it was only right to have her back for the hundredth episode. And she is sharing about her third birth story. I do want to do a sensitivity warning for this episode. We talk a lot about her NICU experience, we talk a little bit about

loss and just a challenging medical setting. So anybody who has had that experience or would be a little rattled by hearing more about a NICU experience, feel free to skip and come back when you're ready or we'll see you back here next week. But I'm very excited to have Heidi back. Without further ado, here's our hundredth episode with Heidi.

Jessica Lamb (02:37)
from beginning.

Heidi (02:38)
OK. So September 12, 2024, the date that I had been long, like literally waiting for forever, it felt like the third trimester of my last pregnancy was so tough. So I was so looking forward to this day. And you know you're on your third baby when you're at the hospital the morning before surgery with your husband and you're like, oh, some me time.

Jessica Lamb (03:08)
That's so funny.

Heidi (03:08)
It's like a morning date.

So I was just cherishing those moments prior to surgery with Jake and the sun coming up because you're there super early. My surgery was scheduled for 730 and you have to be there like three hours in advance or something. So we're just like anxious anticipation and

cherishing this three hours of like alone time. It was nice. And you know, there's nerves usually, but prior to any surgery you get nervous, I'm sure. But I was so excited to meet this baby. We still didn't know the gender. So like that was an exciting piece. And we had two girls at home. So we were like, is this going to be...

Is our final baby going to be like the boy of the family or are we going to be in our girl era forever? And so like the nerves of that and finding out like what what's going to happen was really, really fun. And to some by some like serendipitous coincidence, the doctor who performed performed my first C-section and the doctor who performed my second C-section were working together on my third.

So I felt so good. I felt so good about that.

Jessica Lamb (04:38)
Yeah,

that's such cool, like, happenstance. Because it's not like you live in a small town.

Heidi (04:41)
Yeah. Yeah. No,

no. I mean, I did go to the same OB practice every single time, but there's a team of women that do this. so I was just, I was so floored. Like I was just, I'm in good hands here. These women were so excellent, so capable for my prior two C-sections. I had no cares. Like tap me up, split me open. I'm happy.

to just deliver this baby and be soaking in those newborn snuggles in a matter of minutes. soon enough, we were in surgery. And surgery, it goes quick. That initial time period between when surgery starts and when your baby's born is super fast. And so I was super excited.

They pulled the baby out and I have a video of it that one of the brilliant nurses took on Jake's phone. They pulled the baby out and they were like, okay, dad, what's the gender? And he, having done this twice before, was like, it's a girl. And like his voice, he was so happy, but he was also like fearful. Like there was an element of fear in his voice and he was like, God, another girl, what are we gonna do? So.

That was fun. And I just burst into tears immediately. I'm just overwhelmed. I love my girls. to just copy and paste another time, was like, couldn't ask for better. And they take the baby to the warmer immediately. And I can see in my field of vision, Jake goes over there with her, and he turns around and occasionally gives me a thumbs up. So I'm cool comic collected at this point.

this is how it's done. They clean her up, they give her all the shots and the goop in their eyes. then they bring her over to me to just like bond for the rest of surgery, right? And that newborn bonding bubble in the operating room is something that I like so vividly remember. And I knew that it takes a minute before that actually happens, but.

I was watching and then I felt like heaviness, like I felt some heaviness in my chest and I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I was like struggling to get air. And I was like, doc, the anesthesiologist who's sitting right next to my head, was like, doc, I feel like I'm struggling to breathe. you, and he checks my monitor on my finger and is like, no, you're at 100 % oxygen. You've got oxygen in your nose. Like you're breathing just fine.

And in retrospect, like my mother's intuition really manifests physically. So like I know when my kids are gonna wake up with an ear infection, cause I wake up and I'm like, my ears are hurting. And it's been to the point where my ears will hurt and I just immediately go to urgent care thinking I need antibiotics, but it's really them. Like their ears are what the problem is.

When Lila was little, the first time she ever got nursemaid's elbow, we didn't know what was wrong with her. But my elbow hurt. My mother's intuition manifest physically. I think that was my first sign that something was wrong with my baby. And when I said that, when I said, think I'm struggling to breathe, the doctor was like,

No, you're looking fine, but here, let me give you some of this. And then he sedated me. So I don't remember the rest of the surgery and I don't remember anything that happened. and I'm, I'm, I'm okay with that because I think, you know, the doctor read the room, right? He could see that the baby in the warmer was not doing well. He could, I think it was becoming clear to everyone in the room at that point. and he probably thought I was having a panic attack.

Whereas I felt like I was cool, calm, and collected. did not think I was having a panic, like I didn't know anything was really that wrong. I think it was my mother's intuition telling me like, this is what your baby is feeling right now. So he sedated me and they took the baby to the NICU right there. So after that, I came to in my hospital room with a nurse and

The baby who her name was Della Aspin, she was six pounds even, 18 inches long. She was not there and neither was Jake. So I assumed that they were together. And the nurse told me, she was like, yep, your husband's with Della and the NICU. She just needed some help with her oxygen support. So he's there with her. I'll let him know that you're awake. And I was like, okay, great. I just kind of rested for a second. Jake came.

came back and was like, yeah, Della's having some struggles breathing. They said that this happens to 37 week babies relatively commonly. she's going to need to be in the NICU for like a day. But then she'll come to our room and stay with us for the remainder of her time here once they get the breathing support figured out. And I was like, OK, we can manage that.

but I was desperate to see her cause like I hadn't met her yet. You know, I delivered this baby, found out I had a girl and saw her from a distance like a couple hours ago and I, I still haven't met her. So I was desperate to see her and I was like, get me out of this bed, get me up, get me out of this bed. I want to go to the NICU. and I was so, so determined to, I think three hours post surgery, I tried sitting up.

and immediately threw up. And I just couldn't do it. I couldn't put my feet over the edge of the bed without feeling faint or throwing up. So I needed to take a rest again. At the five hour mark, I tried again and I still threw up, but I was able to keep my wits about myself a little bit. I wasn't constantly fainting or feeling like I was going to faint.

And so they were like, can you, can you make it to the wheelchair? If you can make it into the wheelchair, we'll take you to the NICU. And I was like, hell yeah, I can make it in this damn wheelchair. Um, and so I did, but I was like, sure you have a big, I'm not going to make it very far. Um, and, but I did, I made it to the NICU, threw up the whole way and got there and saw, you know, I was able to see her and I could touch her, her face and her cheeks and her hand. She was.

covered with wires and a CPAP machine so I couldn't really see her face, but I could see like little parts of her cheeks. And I just wanted to let her know I was there. I was there and that I was her mom and that I was so happy she was here and give her whatever strength I had, right? But I was also throwing up like nonstop. So it's like, okay, me back to the room. And I got back.

And Jake and I were like, okay, let's make a plan with the NICU. We were like, they said, you know, she's going to be here overnight. Why don't you guys get some good rest, get some good rest. And in the morning you can come back a little bit more put together, I guess. You you have a little bit more strength the next day. You can take pain meds regularly, maybe start pumping.

And I liked that plan. was like, okay, overnight we're gonna sleep really well and I'm gonna take my pain meds on schedule and then pump only when I take my pain meds so that I can start stimulating my milk supply and not have to wake up additional times per night. And I felt good about that plan and so did the nurses and Jake and everybody else.

Overnight, this sweet, small woman came in and she was like, Della's having trouble breathing. There's air in her chest cavity and we need to needle aspirate to relieve that air. hopefully it relieves the air. If it doesn't, procedure escalates and she'll need a chest tube. And we were like, okay.

Should we come there? Should we go? Should we be with her and hold her hand? And they were like, no, it's a sterile environment. It's best if you just stay here. We were like, okay, we can do that. Like, we'll, we'll stay here. You guys know what's best. so I laid there for a week, a little while, and then she came back a couple hours later, or I don't know how long later. she was like,

Della's lung collapsed. She needed a chest tube. So we've been prepping her for the procedure. We don't have time to wait. She's getting the chest tube now. Still stay in your room. It's a sterile environment and they're working really hard. we were like, like that, that was just hard to process, right? What she also said something about surfactant and having not enough surfactant in her lungs.

and the CPAT, you know, she's still in the CPAT machine, but her oxygen support increased a lot. And I wasn't sure what any of that meant. I didn't even really know what getting a chest tube meant. Does inserting a chest tube mean she's under anesthesia? Does she have any pain meds at all? Was she awake the whole time or how does that work? I guess I just, I had all these questions swirling in my head and

I just laid there and tried to gather my thoughts. Like I wasn't emotional. I wasn't like.

I wasn't really that nervous. I was just very confused. And I knew she was in the best hands. to me, I was still in this space of she needs to stay in the NICU overnight, but then she'll come to our room and she'll be fine. And so how did this change that? We hadn't heard yet. So should I still think she's coming to our room tonight or?

What's the deal? And that next morning, right after shift change, I get my pain meds, shift change happens at 730, and Jake and I are in the NICU at like 731. And I walked in with all of these questions, and I tried to gather my thoughts, but I wasn't really even sure how to verbalize them yet. And we had zero expectations. We did not know what to expect at all.

But, and it's so hard to describe, but I'll do my best. When I walked in there, it was like an ominous feeling. The place is still pretty dark. They keep it pretty dimly lit for the most part. And Ella's back in this corner in her little bed. And like I was wholly unprepared for what I saw. And

As I stood there, the first thing I noticed was just her gasping for air. It looked like she was just gasping for air, trying to breathe. Every rib was showing. I remember thinking it's just skin and bones against this flatbed. Like her body was so concave that it just looked like there was nothing internally holding her up.

And the rhythm was super irregular. was like she was trying, she was literally gasping, trying to find her, her breathing rhythm that wasn't there. and when I saw that, mean, like everything just fell away. The walls fell away, the curtains, whiteboard, the machines, the people, like everything fell away to me. And I was just focused on this baby who's laying there naked.

except for a diaper with all sorts of wires, a mask for the CPAP and surrounded by waves, just these towering, massive.

angry black waves threatening to pull her under and I would lose her forever. Like that's, that's, that's the visualization that came to my head when I saw her and

She was just treading water, fighting as hard as she could. But like, I was gonna lose her. And I didn't know how this was gonna be survivable. Like it didn't seem survivable to me.

And the shock there was a lot. Like I remember seeing her and just not knowing how to even talk, you know?

And in that moment, like I flipped a switch internally and this switch that I flipped, I knew I needed to be 100%. Like up until hours ago, we were the same person to her. You know, that's all she knew up until hours ago. So if I can, if I'm 100 % and she's at 50 % together, we can be 75. If she's at 50 % and I'm at

70%, then that's only 60. So I was like, done, consider me recovered. Like, I am 100 % healed as of this moment, fake it till you make it. She needs me to be 100 % hopeful, 100 % confident, 100 % well, so that we together can get her to a place that's survivable. And...

That's what I did. I just faked it. Like, I took my pain meds around the clock. I would hop out of bed, like, just pumping when I could. When I would see her, I would smile and talk to her and just like, I'd still, the waves were still there. It was me and her treading water in this sea. And I, like, I was gonna make sure she knew that she was not in danger when I was there, even if I couldn't promise it.

I wanted her to feel like she had it made, you know? Like we were gonna be okay.

And that's really the vibe that I held for the next 13 days of her stay. I tried my best and I would, when we were, know, the Nikki was a roller coaster. And when we were riding towards the top, I would like celebrate with her and project warmth and sunshine and

and try to show her that she is okay in this moment. Like we're good here. And when we were in the depths, I would shield her as much as I could, like emotionally and sometimes physically we didn't get to hold her yet because of the chest tube. sometimes I would just walk up to her and...

put myself like over the top of her little bed and speak to her as if it was just me and her, you know, to hopefully project.

confidence and hope and love, as much love as I could give her and show her because pardon me too.

If I did lose her, I wanted her to live the perfect life full of love.

even if it was short.

So I took those moments as much as I could get them.

Even overnight, like some of my most cherished memories of our hospital stay were nighttime visits to the NICU. During the day, it's like all about forward progress and momentum and there's rounds and charts and lots of hustle and bustle. But at night, like I would pump milk in my room and then walk to the NICU to deliver it. And in those moments, was

It was just me and her, like truly. The nurses were there, obviously. They're like never who beyond arm's length of these babies. They're magnificent. I felt so much closer to her during my night visits than I would during daytime visits. And I looked forward to it. Like sign me up to pump and walk and wake up every two hours.

just to have these moments with her, because it was so cherished, for sure.

And, you know, every day she made a little bit more progress. Her oxygen support was variable. And when her needs would come down, we'd be like, yes, she's down to 30 % or whatever it was. I can't really remember. And we would celebrate. And it was like taking our little wins wherever we could get them. One time I was...

I walked into her little area and there was a nurse who, I started talking and Della's head turned towards my voice and the nurse was like, oh look, she knows her mama. Oh my word, when I tell you, I wrote this high confidence from that comment for days. I because I had this underlying fear that she wouldn't know me.

since I delivered her BSC section and did not meet her right away or really at all until much later. And I still haven't held her yet. I wasn't sure if she would know that I was her mom. So when I started speaking and her head turned and the nurse called that out, I was like, my God, she does know me. I felt like that gave me such a warm, fuzzy, confident feeling that I just.

I was so grateful to that nurse in that moment. And I mean, everyone knows that NICU nurses are the best of the best, like angels on this earth. But what I saw in that NICU, those women, they would put any corporate office to shame. seriously, they are so, like, just...

nurturing, caring, observant, proactive, and fucking ruthless when they need to be. Like, they're just...

badass in every aspect of the word. And I loved them. I relied on them so much. And they not only cared for my newborn and the other newborns in there, but for us as parents as well, constantly asking, do you need water? What are your needs right now? They're not my nurse that day, but they were vigilant of all of it.

I was so grateful to them. At one point, I bought them a nothing bundt cake because they would have this mountain of food and snacks in their lunch break room that they would just all randomly eat from. I never saw them in their eating, but I assumed they were getting sustenance in some capacity. So was like, I'm going to put a big nothing bundt cake in here so that you guys have something more than just pretzels.

cream cheese to keep you going. And I just couldn't thank them enough. At the end of our NICU experience, I made friendship bracelets for some of the women that we interacted with the most. And it was just kind of fun and silly, but I didn't know what to do to thank them. Nothing felt enough, you know?

They literally saved my baby's life. And it's never going to be enough to thank them. But I will remember their faces for the rest of my life, hands down. And I'll make sure Della knows about them as well. And my 4 and 1 year old, she helped us with the friendship bracelet. So she was all about it. It was a team effort.

And going through the highs and lows, I knew there would come a moment where we would have to leave the NICU and the hospital and leave Della in the NICU by herself. And we would be going home, and she would be staying. So I steal I steal myself from that. We weren't in this space anymore where she was going to be graduating from the NICU while we were at the hospital.

We weren't there. So we, steeled myself for that moment, but truly like I had two little ones at home still as well. And I had made a decision to be 100 % recovered like less than 24 hours after I delivered. So I knew that that was not realistic, but sleeping in my own bed with like nourishing meals from my own kitchen and being with my

other daughters and next to my husband was gonna help me get to 100 % even quicker. So I was okay with it. I was okay to leave. I knew Della was in good hands at that point too. We had a clear picture of what her care was gonna look like. And I could more easily pump and...

store milk at home than I could at the hospital anyway. So it was okay. For any parents that are currently in that situation, you know, facing the fact of leaving a newborn in the hospital, like just know that it is okay. And even if you are dreading that moment, like that moment comes and goes, and it's hard.

to be away from your baby, but it's also like a gift in a sense, because you can focus your energy on healing yourself and however you need to be to get to that 100%. So on day five or day four, we met Dr. Reutner, who was our Della's primary neonatologist during her stay.

Dr. Rubner was super gung-ho about getting this chest tube out. He was like, we are going to remove this chest tube. She's going to get healed. She's going to breathe, learn to breathe on our own. We are going to make progress here. I don't want to leave the chest tube in for too much longer because the longer it's in, the greater risk of infection, et cetera. And he started talking about how there was a...

standard, like a normal distribution. And between days five and seven is when newborns typically get their chest tube out if they needed one for one reason or another. But we were on day five of having a chest tube. And he wanted to get it out as soon as possible. So we had the x-rays. They ran the tests. He felt so.

pretty like confident, okay enough, confident enough to take her chest tube out on day five. And they did, they took it out and he like bless his heart, talked to me about that standard normal distribution and how day five was kind of on the, was in the range of normal. And I don't think he knew that I was.

mathematician or am a mathematician. So when he started talking to me about like the normal distribution curve, I immediately, you know, connect the dots there to confidence intervals. And I assume that we are working with a 95 % confidence interval in academia. And so hearing those words from him was super helpful because I knew what that meant like mathematically. And it was super helpful until it wasn't.

cause, cause as we approached the statistical outlier category, then, then that, that, that knowledge became less, less positive for me. But day five, she gets her chest tube out. And at this point we can hold her like now that she has her chest tube out, we can hold her and we get to do skin to skin for the first time. I nursed her.

And like we, this was just, we were just amazed. Like this was better than we had. We did not wake up that day thinking, okay, we're going to get her chest tube out and I'm going to get to nurse her before leaving. Like, I was so, so happy. And we were, we just, we left the hospital that night on cloud nine. Like she, she's truly making some good progress here.

And that night, Dr. Rubner calls us and he left a voicemail on Jake's phone and Jake got it and woke me up before listening to it. And Jake woke me up and the first thing that we hear on the voicemail is, Dell is okay. So I was like, okay, thank God. But.

The air started building up in her chest again. We tried to needle aspirate and it did not work. So we had to reinsert a chest tube and we got his voicemail at like 4 a.m. and it was his call that we missed was like, I don't know, a couple of hours prior. And so we call him back around four and

talk to him for a little bit. And they're still working on her. Like they're still working on her, getting her through.

And I don't really know what that means, but Jake and I did not go back to sleep. We were like, solely focused on getting our bigger kids off to daycare that day and then getting to the hospital as fast as we could. that was my lowest day. Like I had made a decision to be 100 % as soon as I saw her gasping for air that day.

in the NICU and that was my lowest day for sure. I was crying nonstop. I was bedridden at one point. Like I just could not even get myself out of bed. I thought for sure, you know, this was it. She has another chest tube. It's day six. Like if she can't, how is she gonna live a normal life?

with a chest tube 100 % of the time? Is this survivable to have little function of your lungs, right? That was my lowest point where I was like, and truly it's because I didn't know. I didn't know enough. And I didn't know how to ask either.

So we go to the NICU that day and the nurses, thank God for them, were able to get an IV in her tiny little veins. So she was on pain control, like finally. I was glad I wasn't there for it because that's a traumatic thing to see, but I was so glad that they did it because it gave me so much peace knowing that she wasn't in pain.

And Dr. Rubner too, he was on the same page as far as pain medication. he, I know they say that babies don't feel pain the way adults do, or that all it takes is like sugar water or breast milk and that's their pain control. I was like, no, I don't care what the studies say. Like she doesn't even like taking her little bandage off her foot. Like how is she?

How do you do a chest tube with no pain control, right? So I was so glad that they were able to do that. And.

You know, we just took it hour by hour at that point. Prayed, prayed really hard, tried to show her we loved her as much as we could. Talked to her as much as we could. Leaving that day was difficult because I was like, I remember telling the nurse like...

Will I never be able to nurse her again? Like, was that my one and only time? If I leave tonight, like, what's gonna happen? You know, we were in such this low, scary point.

coming off of a day of just super hopeful cloud nine type of high, right? And then I went back to like Dr. Rubner's words in my mind and that standard normal distribution five to seven days. We're on day six so like this is okay. Like this is normal. And I started to be able to ask the questions that I needed to ask in terms of like what

what do the next steps look like? Whatever the scenario may be, what does that look like? And I was really grateful that Dr. Rubner was able to spend so much time talking through like, okay, if it doesn't heal by day 10, this is what we do. This is how that's gonna look. And that would be transferring to children's hospital and escalating her care further and trying to...

navigate whatever underlying cause.

could be happening here.

And I felt a little bit better having heard what the potential outcomes were and none of the potential outcomes that he laid out for the days ahead included like death. So I was like grateful for that. Cause that was where my head was, right? So having some perspective helped me there.

And just refocusing helped me there. So day six was a low point. I was not doing well. But day seven came around and I was like, okay, we can do this. we have, day 10 is that point that we're gonna focus on now. So let's just let her rest, let her heal, talk to her when we can, take care of her in whatever ways we can.

you know, whether that's putting little lotion on her dried little toes or swapping out some of her blankets to have some of my scent or Jake's scent or, you know, comforts of home, whatever we can do to bring her love and hope, we were gonna do. And I was refocused on that as much as I could be. And...

Thank God that my brother and sister-in-law or future sister-in-law were here because they came in clutch. mean, we had planned for them to be here for two weeks between like September 15th and the 30th. And that two weeks was to help at home with a newborn. But thank God they were here because

had they not been, we would not have been able to leave late at night to go back to the NICU for her eight o'clock or 11 p.m. cares. They really, my sister-in-law was making like the most delicious, like home cooked soups and just the healing that they helped us achieve during that timeframe was just monumental. And

Jake and I still talk about it. Like four months later, we still talk about how like just incredible the help that we received during that time was. And we literally could not have done it without them. We would have had to split up. I would have had to take less pain meds so I could drive by myself. And that two weeks was really a...

chance for Jake and I to, you know, drive to the NICU multiple times per day, connect together there without Littles, you know, kind of taking your, your attention, and then work together on staying hopeful and positive for Della and for her care and showing her love. And, my gosh, at one point, the nurse, the nurses was like, one of the nurses said,

I'm, you're a really confident dad around babies. Like I don't ever turn my back on a baby with a dad in the room. And, but she was like, but I just easily turned my back because you handle this baby with such care and love and confidence that I don't feel the need to hover. And I was like, just so proud. Like, like.

I don't know, I just, really lucked out to have a man by my side through all of this, even when I'm bedridden, even when I'm going through the highs and lows of NICU emotions. I had this jackpot next to me that was there for strength.

every single time I needed him. And he was there for me, he was there for Della, he was there for our other girls. Truly just...

I could not have done it without him, for sure. And that's what the next two days looked like. Della resting, getting pain medication, and slowly weaning. And they wanted her to be very calm, not crying, letting that lung heal. And as they started to wean her off pain medication, talks started happening about getting the chest tube out.

And day nine, they made a plan and Dr. Rubner was like, okay, her chest tube's coming out tomorrow. Like if all looks well on x-rays in the morning, we're going to take it out again. And, and I was like, okay. But having gone through this once, we were both like skeptical. day 10 comes around and,

Jake and I are there and the nurses are the ones taking the chest tube out this time. And they let us stay like in the NICU. They kind of cordoned off the area so that they could stay sterile, but they let us stay close by. So we got to see it and Della didn't make a peep. Like she wasn't on pain medication at that point, but she didn't cry. They were so gentle.

These nurses are so talented. I'm like, man, I'm amazed, like truly amazed. So they took her chest tube out, her oxygen, you now she's on high flow and not the CPAP. So we can, we get a chance to see her face and her blonde hair. And we're just anxious, anxiously awaiting the next.

over the next 24 hours, how things are going to look. And they took the chest tube out in the morning this time instead of in the evening. So by the evening, we were a little bit more confident that we could leave there. It had been 12 hours since her chest tube was out. She got another x-ray and no air accumulation after 12 hours. they were going to continue the x-rays to check on things and make sure she wasn't getting to too critical of a state.

But day 10, literally the day that we had focused on and prayed for and manifested, the chest tube came out and she did not need another chest tube after day 10. And after that, it takes a few extra days. The NICU doesn't just take chest tubes out of babies and let you go home. They wanna know that when they send a baby home, that this baby is

well and truly healed and can be thriving outside of the NICU in every capacity. So she has to be able to take a full bottle, breathe on room air oxygen. She would go home on oxygen support for sure, but the oxygen support needed to be very like minimal amount. we...

We were weaning oxygen over the course of three days. she, it's too high. Oxygen support's too high. You can't go home today. And she's doing great on bottles. She's nursing at some point and drinking bottles at other points. It's really focusing on getting her oxygen support down. So her chest tube is out. She's eating. She's getting stronger. She's looking better. Like her color looks great. Her chest, like she looks like a

a bigger baby at this point. It's not just skin and bones against a flat surface, which is truly what it looked like in the beginning. And day 13, or day 12, she did an oxygen trial where they just remove all oxygen and see how long she can last. And she lasted 37 minutes before I was like, guys, I don't like this. I'm not.

Her stats were getting lower and lower seemingly by the minute and I was just staring at the stats on her little machine next to her bed and I was getting more and more stressed out as I was watching these numbers. So they cut it off after 37 minutes and we're like, so she can go 37 minutes without oxygen support, that's not great. But as long as you keep her nasal cannula in.

24 hours a day for however long it takes, then she can go home. So we went home that night, the nursery, preparing our other girls. You know, the car seat trial happened overnight. All of these pieces had finally come together, and day 13, we got to leave the NICU before lunch that morning. So like...

Like we had, we got to leave the NICU in the morning and bring her home to meet the girls and meet my brother and my future sister-in-law and grizzly and like see her home for the first time all in the same day. And it was like, it was nerve wracking cause we still had this oxygen, massive oxygen tank to, to worry about. But, it was just like, I didn't,

I didn't feel like we were being...

formed by these sinister waves anymore. Like she, we'd reached land at this point. She was out of, out of the danger zone. And, I was going to make sure, you know, her care and the love that she received from our family would get her across the finish line over the next few weeks. while, while her lung continued to heal and that oxygen support at home did its job. and then I mean,

The real craziness starts when you bring that third baby home and you've got two others and you have three children and two arms and you're like, okay, everyone, my brother had to leave. My sister-in-law had to leave. Jake went back to work after those two weeks, which was like planned. He would have taken more time if Della was in the NICU, but I went from having like all of this structure and support around my days.

to being at home with this little teeny tiny baby newborn and getting my other girls where they needed to be on my own each day. So that was, I mean, we navigated it, but I was just so glad, so glad to have her home and so glad we were out of that like place of fear. Yeah, I never, I never want to experience that again for sure. It's terrifying.

Jessica Lamb (50:23)
When do you feel, because you said that you, when it all started to unfold, you were like, okay, I'm good. I'm at a hundred percent every day. I'm being the other percent for her. Do you feel like after you got home, or maybe it was while you were still in the NICU while things were starting to improve, when do you feel like it finally hit you?

Heidi (50:50)
It was four days after Della came home and my blood pressure had started to increase and I was just feeling off and I was like physically feeling more unwell. And I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go to urgent care. I'm just gonna go to urgent care because I don't feel well.

And urgent care was like, need to go to the hospital. If you just delivered a baby and you had preeclampsia during your entire pregnancy and your blood pressure's rising, you need to go to the emergency room. And I was like, okay. So I went to the emergency room by myself. And part of me was like, get it together, get it together, get it together. And the other part of me was like, there's no way that this is preeclampsia related.

I didn't have any preeclampsia issues post pregnancy with either of my other two deliveries. I hadn't had high blood pressure in the two weeks in the hospital or since Della's birth. This has got to be just like, it hitting me essentially. And so I signed an AMA because they wanted to put me, they wanted to admit me on a magnesium drip out of precaution.

And I was like, that is crazy. drip, there's so much in between. I think I might have high blood pressure and admit her on a magnesium drip. That's insane. So this wasn't, I didn't go to the hospital I delivered at. This was just like a random hospital nearby. And that's when it kind of clicked for me. Like, okay, you're not having a preeclampsia issue. You're just freaking out because

here you are with little to no support with an oxygen tank baby and two other children that you're feeling pretty alone with. And so I went home. I signed an AMA and just went home. But that's when it hit me. I don't think I truly...

got out of that funk for weeks, really. I mean, once it hit me after she was home and I knew she was safe and I had kind of let myself realize what had happened and like go experience some of those emotions. I think it took weeks before I was like able to speak about it and find.

find words to adequately.

speak about what happened. I would just cry. I couldn't do it. Like, I couldn't find the words for weeks. That went on for weeks. And sometimes I would just think about it to myself and think about those moments and the lows and the highs and like the love and the everything from the moments that I cherish to the moments that I dread. And I would just bawl my eyes out. Like, and it wasn't like a

It wasn't like I was crying because I was so glad she was home. I was crying because I was so scared. it was so scary still in that moment and it just made me feel so sad. Like, I wasn't crying out of relief in those moments. I was crying because I was processing the emotions that I couldn't process during our NICU stay.

Jessica Lamb (54:47)
Yeah, I feel like in my own Niki story and then other Niki stories I've heard, I feel like there's so much repression that happens just to get through it all. think it's, to me it was a really interesting like peek into survivalism almost, like what our brains do to get us through. But I think the part that we don't talk about often,

is the after part. Like obviously it's so terrifying. It's so scary. It's all the things while it's happening, but there's some level I feel like that you're watching it happen almost like, you're feeling the feelings. You're upset. You're like, it's, it's hard while you're doing it. But for me specifically, I felt like I was just watching it all happen.

Heidi (55:20)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Lamb (55:41)
So when I did come home and like you said, it was like, you go back to your day to day and I would just have random like flashes of like image. I'm a very visual person. So I would have like images of my baby in the NICU or like, I would have like images of like us checking into the hospital that were just random and would make me feel that same way where like I.

wasn't feeling the feelings of them and they didn't go away. They just came up at a different time. And I think a lot of times we do a disservice to moms and dads who have had a NICU experience by saying like, well, thank God they're healthy or thank God they're okay. if the experience didn't happen. Like it's negated this whole experience because they're healthy and well.

Heidi (56:35)
Yeah.

Jessica Lamb (56:37)
I'm always interested to see when it hits for other moms. Cause sometimes it's like, my baby's six months old and I'm just now thinking of it and getting emotional and getting upset. And I just knew about myself that I needed to like process it quickly because I wouldn't have made the choice to do it otherwise. So I had to make this choice while I was like still in that survival mode.

I want to say like two weeks after we got home, I was still in this survivalist mode. And I knew that if I didn't make a conscious decision while I was in that zone to do some processing or do some therapy work on it, that I was never going to. And I feel like it definitely saved myself from pushing this experience farther out than it needed to go, if that makes sense.

Heidi (57:30)
Absolutely. No, I feel the same way. Like, it is a disservice to speak about your NICU experience and then follow it up with, but she's okay now. You know, like I had to stop doing that because it just felt wrong to me, to tell people what happened and, and then followed up with.

Jessica Lamb (57:52)
Mm-hmm.

Heidi (57:59)
I'm just glad she's home and okay. you know, all's good and well now. So let's move on. Like I stopped, had to like physically stop myself from saying that because it didn't feel right in my gut to follow up this like monumental story with, but I'm glad she's okay now. Cause it was still raw. Like it was still very much happening in my brain. The flashes I experienced the exact same thing. Like,

Like in my scenario, I would still see my baby just floating in the North Sea trying to breach the surface of the water and get air when she could. like, that was the type of imagery that would come to me randomly and I would literally jump out of bed. Like it caused me to physically jolt. And it doesn't really happen as much anymore, but I did.

I did have to work through a lot of that in postpartum therapy, specifically regarding our NICU stay and processing those emotions and the experience altogether. Because it's one thing to have a baby that's healthy and well and breathing just fine and sleeping peacefully in her crib or in your arms or wherever, but it's another thing in your head to.

Jessica Lamb (59:16)
Yeah. What did.

Heidi (59:28)
to know that your baby is healthy and well and peacefully sleeping in your arms, physically, in reality, but in your head, it's not happening, right?

Jessica Lamb (59:38)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's so many, you're experiencing, there's so many like, for me, it was, there were so many unsaid what ifs, like, what if this happens? And what if we go with XYZ plans and it doesn't go well, that were never like verbalized. They were just like the intrusive thoughts that came in my head that would just continue while after he was home that like, well, what if this had happened?

And I think that that like eats away at you too.

Heidi (1:00:08)
totally. mean, there were moments where I would be like, what if I had to plan a funeral procession? Like, what if I had to do this? What if I had had to do that? And he's like, I just had to shut that shit down. and it's really a mental game. Like it's truly, it's postpartum therapy that gets you through.

Jessica Lamb (1:00:34)
Yeah. How physically, how did things feel for you coming home? Because I think C-section is so different than vaginal birth. And I'm just interested to see what, like, even now, what things are like for you, given that your, quote unquote, recovery was such a short window of time.

Heidi (1:01:00)
Yeah, no. So my first C-section recovery was fantastic. I was hiking three weeks later. Like I felt great. My second C-section recovery, I did not take it easy at all because I was like, I can do this. C-section recovery, been there, done that. So my third, I took really intentional rest when I was not in the NICU.

I took really intentional rests and that helped. That helped me a lot. And I do feel like I had a leg up in the C-section recovery space because I was able to have so much help around me. I didn't need to be chasing my toddlers or cooking or cleaning. Like I just rested and...

made sure I was resting so that I could be 100 % as fast as possible.

Jessica Lamb (1:02:01)
Yeah, I feel like that's another area that we don't really talk about after a NICU stay is like the recovery piece of things. that like, there's not a lot of like brain rest. You can rest your body and feel better having rested. But I think that there's like a, something to not being able to like fully rest your brain or your nervous system that winds up like manifesting.

later. And I think there is something to like, again, that survivalist of like turning off the parts of your body that don't feel good or are hurting or whatever it might be that we do. I remember in my NICU stay, I had a regular vaginal birth and I was like, well, I didn't have a C-section. So I'm going to be fine to be walking around in the city where the NICU is. And I was super tired at the end of the day and

didn't like my body didn't feel good. I was like, I just had a baby, no big deal. But it wasn't until I got like a uterine infection and had horrible pelvic dysfunction that I was like, maybe not resting and taking care of myself and utilizing the opportunities I had to rest were more detrimental than I expected. But I think that's another piece of like why doing some kind of processing or therapy after so essential.

Heidi (1:03:17)
Yeah.

Jessica Lamb (1:03:30)
because I mean, my son's two and I'm just now dealing with a lot of the pelvic floor dysfunction that I had from a really long traumatic birth and then not recovering after in that postpartum period well that had I not done any, I'm, so I'm doing the therapy for it to start recovering from that but then I very quickly reminded of like,

that experience, like so many things just bring you right back to it. And had I not done this processing, I feel like anytime I'd be like, okay, go on a pelvic floor therapy, I would do that like flashback of the experience and still have that like, emotional charge attached to it that I know nothing I no longer have. It's just not as impactful, I guess, day to day.

so I think I'm like so big on everyone needs to go to therapy for anything, but I think like what you're saying, this whole like, well, my baby's fine. I don't really need it. I think even just talking through it with someone who will just listen, I think is so, so helpful.

Heidi (1:04:33)
Truly.

Yeah, yes. And even if you can't the words, like that was part of my issue too, is I could not verbalize any of this truly for weeks. And I would try to tell my postpartum therapist what happened. And I would try to tell, you know, friends and family what happened, but I just couldn't, I couldn't figure out the words to say.

And at one point, it just started to kind of come together in my head, you know? But it took a lot of trying, a lot of practice, and a lot of like thoughtful...

processing to be able to verbalize the actual events.

Jessica Lamb (1:05:43)
Yeah, yeah, and I distinctly remember with the woman that I did birth processing with that I kept having this like shortened version of everything because there is so much that happens and there's so much like nuance to every NICU story and that I just found it easier to do like the bullet points and I distinctly remember her saying like if you just have to do the bullet points then don't tell anyone or like don't tell if you feel like it's not

giving justice to your story or experience and it's more harmful to you in the long term, then just don't tell the story. Or if it is helpful to you to just do the bullet points and call it a day, then do that. But I think doing what feels good to you, and maybe it's good to you right when you come home and then two months later, it's like, man, this doesn't feel genuine or authentic to me now. I think honoring where you're.

mental spaces at when sharing your story. It's so hard to share these stories and like really, it's like so altering and you're like sharing a piece of you that is like forever a part of you and having to explain to people like

Heidi (1:06:55)
Right.

Jessica Lamb (1:06:59)
I feel like there's no true way to put words that like give it justice. So if you feel like the words you're putting to it are not giving it justice and it feels like a slight against the experience, then don't share it. You don't owe it to anybody to share your experience. But like you said, if working through it and sharing it in different ways helps you get to that point by all means.

Heidi (1:07:18)
your question.

Yeah, and I've shared my story a little bit with friends and family. And there were moments where I'm like, maybe I shouldn't say that part about feeling like it was my mother's intuition manifesting physically. Or maybe I shouldn't talk about how the walls fall away and the waves are replaced. But truly, that's what I experienced in the moment. And that's the only way I know how to

how to verbalize the events entirely. And without those pieces, I would not be doing it justice. like, that's partly why I wanted to share my story with you is because I knew that I had the pieces in place. like, I felt like the...

way that I could describe it, even if it is kind of nonsense to others, made total sense to me.

Jessica Lamb (1:08:32)
Yeah, well thank you for sharing. Like I said, I know it's really hard to kind of navigate through the story and almost relive the experience from top to bottom, but I think when we're able to share our stories and feel comfortable and want to, I think it's very helpful and healing for other people too.

Heidi (1:08:51)
Yes. like during our NICU stay, asked the social workers at the hospital for resources of other parents. I wanted to hear other people's stories like this. wanted to know that there were other parents that had gone through those low phases only to have a successful outcome. I really wanted to have that be

like a resource I could rely on during our stay and I didn't really find anything. So that was also part of my motivation, know, like maybe hearing that like at one point I was considering what it would be like to plan a funeral for a baby and how I would even make it through that to now, you know, with a thriving four month old who's just giggling on my lap at her doctor's appointments.

Jessica Lamb (1:09:52)
Yeah, I think it's so impactful to be able to share even when it's hard. So thank you.

Heidi (1:09:59)
course.

Jessica Lamb (1:10:01)
Special thank you to Heidi for being on the episode. I know it can be challenging to kind of bear it all and share your story. So I appreciate you coming on not only to chat with me about it, but allowing me to share with all my followers. We appreciate you and I'm so glad you were on. Heidi has started a blog using writing to kind of...

navigate and process her birth experience with her third baby. So she has a blog over on Substack. You can find it wildwivesclub.substack.com. We'll put that in the show notes, but please go over and support Heidi by following her Substack and subscribe so that you can get regular blog posts from Heidi.