46. (Part Two) What 25 Days in the NICU Taught Us About Faith, Control & God's Provision

In this episode I'm continuing Isaac's birth story — and this time, my husband Brian is joining me to share what those 25 days in the NICU were really like from both of our perspectives. From the moment Isaac was taken away minutes after birth, to the feeding battles, the emotional exhaustion of leaving him each day, and finally bringing him home — this is the full story of what God did in and through one of the hardest seasons of our lives.

Having a premature baby at 33 weeks was never part of our plan. But what unfolded in that NICU — the lessons in surrender, the provision we witnessed daily, and the unexpected ways God met us both in our fear — became one of the most profound faith experiences of our family's story. This episode is raw, honest, and deeply personal, including the moment I found the Abraham and Isaac parallel that changed everything about how I understood what it meant to lay my son at the altar and trust God to provide.

Whether you're currently in a NICU season, recovering from a premature birth, navigating the early postpartum fog, or simply needing a reminder that God does not waste a single hard moment — this episode is full of hope and truth for wherever you are.

In this episode, we share:

👶 What the first moments in the NICU were really like — and how Brian processed the fear and grief of not being able to hold his son

🙏 The "I will provide" moment that became our anchor Scripture through the entire NICU stay

🍼 The feeding journey — from feeding tubes and around-the-clock pumping to the breakthrough of exclusive breastfeeding

🏠 How we balanced daily NICU visits with two kids at home and what that did to us as a couple

✝️ The sweetness God brought in the hardest moments — and what we'd tell any NICU family walking this road

Scripture Shared: "So Abraham called the name of that place, 'The Lord will provide'; as it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.'" — Genesis 22:14 (ESV)

Mentioned in this episode:

✨ Christian Mama Birth Prep Library - Free birth prep tools, worship playlists & more

💕 Work with Me 1:1 – Virtual Doula Support & Schedule a Private Coaching Call

✝️ Online Christian Childbirth Education - Explore my complete birth preparation self-paced course

🎴 NEW Christian Birth Affirmation Cards: You can now purchase them here

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend.

Let's keep choosing faith over fear, one birth story at a time. Go here for the full blog post, birth photos, and all resources mentioned!

Transcript

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Welcome to Faith Over Fear, the Christian Pregnancy and Birth podcast. I'm Natalie Portman, a Jesus-loving mama, birth doula, and childbirth educator. And it's so easy to make this season about controlling outcomes or proving our strength, but the Lord invites us into something so much better, the chance to love Him more, trust Him more deeply, and experience His joy even in the hard moments. That's what this podcast is all about, and I'm so glad you're here with me. Let's choose faith over fear together. If you're joining me for the first time today, I would love to encourage you to go back and listen to part one of Isaac's birth story, and that's episode 45, before you dive into today's episode. It's gonna give you so much more context for everything we're going to share, but if you're back and you listened to part one and you're ready for the rest, hi. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. And today, I have a very special guest with me. This is Brian, my husband, who's gonna be joining me for this episode, and I could not be more excited about him coming on to share, because this is his story as well. he was there for all of it, and I think it's so important for you to hear his perspective alongside mine. So Brian, happy to have you here. Hi, longtime listener, first-time guest. big fan of your work. I would hope so. But anyway, so in this episode, we're gonna be talking about, everything that happened after Isaac was born, his stay in the NICU, the feeding journey, and then what God was teaching us in all of that. So here we are. Almost four months postpartum, but I thought we would kinda go back and start off with, what was your reaction just after he was born? Lots and lots of emotions. right after he was born, I was just grateful to hear him come out crying. that was such a relieving thing. me personally, I'm not too familiar with, premature birth-type situation, so I really just did not know what to expect with him coming seven weeks early. but he came out, and he was waving his arms and belting his little lungs out. and that was just so relieving. and the wave of emotion that just came for seeing him born, seeing you complete the labor and delivery, and, so many of our, family and friends that were in the room with us, and the doctors, just, being grateful for all of that. Yeah. I also shared in the birth episode, your emotions were on display the moment he was taken away to the NICU. And Erin, our birth photographer, got some really... they're beautiful shots, but also just heartbreaking shots of you kind of wrestling through that moment of him being taken away and- Like I shared how for me it was different because I was coming off of a high of just giving birth, but for you it was like, felt pretty unnatural is kind of what I feel like you told me at one point, of just "Okay, now our son is being taken away," and that just was a really weird feeling because that was obviously not what we experienced with Ellie or Daniel's birth. Yeah. I would say, I guess, the emotions that I was talking about before of right when he was born was, okay, he came out and we got to see him, but it really felt like about 20 seconds before the NICU personnel were saying that they needed to take him away, and that was an instant change of, relief that he was born to, I mean, anger. I was angry and scared and, beside myself that I could not just hold my son and couldn't, have you hold him and do the skin-to-skin and all the stuff that we were used to with Ellie and with Daniel, and obviously this was a very different, situation. But- Yeah yeah, the, I don't know that I've ever had such a visceral reaction to a stranger saying one sentence to me as I did for the NICU person who was holding Isaac saying, "He's got to come with me," and I had not even gotten to physically touch him at all yet. that was very hard, to even understand and put emotion to, and I just kind of had waves of that anguish come over me throughout the next few hours after he was born, but especially right there in that first minute or so, 'cause it really was maybe 60 seconds that we had him in the room before he was whisked away. Yeah. And then you got some time with him in the NICU while I was still just hanging out, after giving birth. will you share kind of what your reaction to seeing him in the NICU was? And Erin got some photos of that as well. yeah. So one of the, one of the labor and delivery nurses who was with us through the labor and that I think you had a previous connection with just by nature of the other births that you've been a part of, she was able to... She said, so quote unquote "sneak into the NICU" to be able to get a photo of Isaac on my phone and bring it back to us. And so that's really the only thing that we had for I think it was, like, almost two hours before she came back and said that, that I was able to go back and visit while you were still, going through the immediate postpartum stuff. but finally being brought back there after being on pins and needles anytime anybody came into the delivery room. I expected every single time the door opened that it was the nurse saying, "Come on back." And then it never was, but it finally became, two hours or so later. and going into the NICU and seeing this just tiny little baby, his, what, four pounds, seven ounces- Mm-hmm of him- Mm-hmm hooked up to more wires than I cared to count, and a breathing tube, and a feeding tube, and all the beeps. And it was all very hard. It was unnatural, is what it really felt like. And, praise God for modern medicine and the calling that medical professionals have to be able to do this kind of work, or that kind of work. for me, it just felt very hard not to be able to just pick him up. He just seemed so delicate. I was nervous to, just put my hand on him. And when I got into the NICU and, the personnel in there were saying, "Don't rub on his head, and do, these soft touches," 'cause it's just over-stimulating for them, and they're already dealing... he is already dealing with so much, newness to being born this early that you just need to be very- Low stimulation. Yeah, like doing the hand hug and all that. And I remember also feeling w- it felt weird to be, like, with our son, but it felt like we were- Visitors. Y- yeah, yeah, we were visiting a child that we had to be really mindful of how we were interacting with him. And it was a very strange feeling. I remember very distinctly, once I was able to see him, which was once they were moving me over into the postpartum room. So this was a couple I think it actually ended up being, like, maybe three or four hours postpartum that I finally got to go see him in the NICU. And I remember distinctly f- hearing, "Where the ideal is unrealized, grace abounds." That was something the Lord kept kind of bringing to mind for me, which is something that our pastor says a lot. And I looked up, 2 Corinthians 12:9, and it says, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." And that verse, I feel like, perfectly summed up that moment for me, because it really was... I was just beholding the weakness of our son, but also the weakness of my flesh to be able to control what was happening. But at the same time, I felt this blanket of peace over all of it, that I knew the Lord had Isaac, and I knew the Lord had me and everything about our family in His hands. And so that was such a gift that I couldn't even fully understand, like, how the Lord was sustaining me in all that. Truly, His grace was sufficient for me in that. and so yeah, anything else to share about the NICU, i- in regards to the first moments with him, I think backing up even a little bit to the labor, it took a while once we were actually admitted into labor and delivery for me to understand and appreciate what was really even happening. and then honestly, being fearful in a lot of that, and just, I mean, constantly being in, internal prayer and asking God why is this happening? I don't understand how, this is the plan that you have set for this, this child, our family." and He very much met me in that, in that fear. especially immediately postpartum and, in that minute or so that we got with Isaac, and the time with our family afterward, waiting to be able to go back into He did not lean away from me when I jumped inward into myself of being fearful of not knowing what was going on. He is just good, even in what I would say is probably the hardest thing that I feel like I have gone through in those scary moments. and seeing your faith be amazing in those moments, was also such a strange juxtaposition to how I was feeling, because you really were just, from the get-go, "I'm gonna trust God. This is what's happening, and He's got it in His hands, and we're just here to be part of His story," was an amazing thing and a reminder that, birth and motherhood and, all the things associated with that are this wonderful calling that He's put on your life, and the podcast. Thanks, baby. Well, and I think One of the biggest reasons I think the Lord was sustaining me in the way that He was because I walked through so much the previous year. And thinking back to- Just the unimaginable darkness and grief that I walked through really prepared me for this trial that he had me in at the, at that moment. And so that was something that I, again, like looking back on the trials that I would have never chosen for myself in 2025, walking through having Isaac, needing all these medical interventions not knowing how long we were going to be in this season, like all the things, that was daunting. But because I could look back on the Lord's faithfulness in previous seasons, I just knew he was going to sustain us for the next one. So yeah. let's talk about what our daily rhythm was like, having him in the NICU while also having two other littles at home, because that was really, one of the hardest aspects to all of this was like balancing how we were going to manage to see him every day, and then also keep ourselves sane and also be good parents to Ellie and Daniel. Like I feel like that was such a weird balance we were trying to come up with. do you want to share more about that, or do you want me to kind of go into my experience? Do you think we stayed sane in that? Because I don't think that we stayed sane in that. I feel like I did for most of it. There were some days, some moments where I was like on struggle bus, but... That immediate, stretch of postpartum was so strange 'cause he was born Sunday early, early morning, and then we were home that Sunday night less than a day of him being out in the world. and It felt so wrong to not have our child coming home with us when we were leaving from the hospital. We were visitors into the space that he was in for monitoring and care and all of that, and then we had to just leave at a certain point. Not that they kicked us out, but, yeah. So we just, we went home. And, your parents had Ellie and Daniel already, so that first night we just went home and slept. Tried to sleep. Tried to sleep, yeah. The anxiety of, and the emotional overflowing of what all is actually going on right now, was really hard for the first week or so of just even understanding the reality that we were in of, we have our child, but he's not home with us, and what does the house look like when you're trying to recover postpartum, we're trying to understand what being, a family of five is having the kids, all of that was, this weird roller coaster that we kind of figured out one day, one piece at a time. Which in some ways made him being in the NICU easier, I would say, because we weren't immediately bringing home a third child to then just immediately integrate into our rhythm. In some ways it was nice to have kind of a, an on-ramp to that situation. But the hardest part was that when we were with him, we had to completely have childcare lined up for Ellie and Daniel, because I think at first you and I were trying to get up there at the same time and be there, all three of us together. But then when we had it to be where I would be up there in the morning, you would go, when the kids were down for naps, then it was like it was starting to feel more separated. Even how much we interacted together felt just less and less as time went on. yeah. The first I think five days or so, four or five days, we, would get Ellie dropped off at school and, get the morning figured out with Daniel, and then kind of drop them off Or have them home and somebody would come and watch them here at our house, and then you and I would be able to go up together, spend time with Isaac. that got to be just something that was very hard, 'cause it was every single day trying to figure out, well, can somebody come over to see the kids so that we can go see Isaac in the NICU? I think the two weeks after that, so the second and third weeks, we got into the rhythm of basically you would get up, eat breakfast, head to the NICU until about lunchtime or so. I would just handle Ellie and Daniel, with, getting them up in the morning, Ellie to school, hang out with Daniel. And then you and I would quite literally tag in, tag out kind of a thing, where you would come home around lunchtime, a little after lunchtime. and we would just be ships passing in the night for what felt like- Weeks two weeks or so. Yeah. That obviously got really hard. That, was a whole other level of emotional, difficulty for us as husband and wife, on top of also trying to be, Mom and Dad for the two kids at home and the one in the NICU, and trying to juggle all of the things. that was a very hard season. I also found that it was getting harder and harder to even just leave him in the NICU. Like at first, it was... I don't know, like I, I was so tired, cause I wasn't sleeping. I... Even though like emotionally I felt pretty level and all the things, but when it would come time for me to actually be able to lay down and sleep, my nervous system was so frazzled, that I couldn't sleep. And so I was still waking up, every few hours to pump even though, he wasn't home with me, so I could keep my milk supply up. But the lack of sleep, was starting to really compound and get to me. The emotional kind of separation that you and I were having, 'cause we just had to make it work that way. and then just the more time we got with him and seeing him interact with us more in the NICU, like it was harder and harder to leave him. And I remember, asking specifically for people to pray for us in that, because it was just like, it would make my stomach drop whenever I'd have to leave him. Like it just felt, like I was like abandoning him, even though I know I wasn't. And I would have to constantly remind myself, "He's not supposed to be here yet." The NICU is, is helping sustain his body and grow him outside of me, because he was supposed to still be inside me growing and doing all these things and- And learning all these things. And so that was a weird, mental shift that I had to keep reminding myself because it just didn't make sense to me that I couldn't just be with him all the time. My body was just like, "This is so unnatural." the idea that, his name is Isaac, but thinking about the story of Abraham and how he had to lay his son Isaac on the altar, and it reminded me of, every time I left Isaac, I felt like I got that picture of okay, I'm leaving him on this bed. I'm leaving him at the altar, and I have to go. And I have to trust the Lord with whatever he's gonna do while I'm not here with him. And, what's crazy about that is, and I've shared this on the podcast a lot of times, I know you've heard this a million times, but the word that the Lord kept giving me was, "I will provide." And so when I was looking, preparing for this episode, Genesis 22:14 where it talks about Abraham leaving Isaac on the altar, this is what that verse says. It says, "So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide. As it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.'" So the fact that was what the Lord kept speaking over me, and that's what that verse was in context to Abraham leaving his son on the altar, I was like, that is mind-blowing to me. Because that really was, like, what the Lord spoke over me, and what I had to remind myself of constantly is that, as much as I want to be here providing for Isaac, it's gonna be the Lord that provides for him. And those NICU nurses were like little angels just taking care of our sweet buddy. But you know, it was like I had to have this level of I want to control this, I want to be the one that Isaac is holding onto and constantly with, but that's not, it's not the way it is. And so I have to just believe that the Lord will provide for him and do all the things for him where I can't do that. Yeah, the amount of trust that I feel like I had have in the Lord in that season I can't do the things for Isaac that I would be able to do if he were home, or if he were full term, and what I could do for Ellie and what I could do for Daniel. the faithfulness and goodness of God to bring Isaac early, and, to put him in the environment where it was beneficial for the NICU nurses that were absolute blessings. Every single one of them just became this smiling and wonderful face when we would walk in, and give us little updates. And we would call constantly to the NICU, and they would answer and go, "Oh, hi, Natalie. Hi, Brian." Isaac's doing great today. or, some updates that weren't great, but those are just the days that we also had to deal with. yeah laying him in the NICU, like Abraham laid Isaac before the Lord and just trusted him- Mm-hmm is, is a prophetic thing that I did not really think that we would be doing with our son. Isaac's Over here laying in the closet office where I record these podcasts, and he is crying out. He's "Hey, you guys are talking about me." So Brian's gonna hold him for the rest of the interview. So if you hear little sounds, that's our little buddy. one thing that I also wanted to talk about was the Angel Eye app and my love-hate relationship with it. So they gave us the ability to have a video monitor on him, except for when they were changing diapers, doing medical things to him. and, having that ability to just pop in on the app and just see what he was doing, which most of the time it was him sleeping, was such a blessing in one way, but also, gut-wrenching in the other. I hated seeing him, awake. Anytime he was awake and I saw him, my heart broke 'cause I just was... I... Or especially if he was, like, looking around. I just was like, "Oh, I just wanna be there," and be a face that he sees and a voice that he hears and all that. And so that was h- like, beautiful and also really difficult to have that, ability. I loved the ability to be able to peek in, to be able to see him throughout the day. but it also, like you said, made it really hard to have to open up my phone to get access or to see our son. I'm, I have said and will say the word unnatural a million different times when it comes to, the first few weeks of him being here. and yeah the heartbreaking gut feeling of when he was awake and his eyes were just steady open and he was just kind of looking around "Nope that's the time that we're supposed to be holding him and with him, and we're... He's supposed to be seeing us and- We're just looking at a screen was very difficult to do Well, even in the NICU when we were there again, most of the time he was sleeping, but when he was, like, quiet and alert and kind of looking around, that was the most difficult time to leave. Like I never wanted to leave, and what was crazy is he would actually pick up on the fact that we were there with him, and he would fight sleep to just look at us and interact with us. And so again, made it even harder. But it was really precious, and so sometimes I could tell he was so tired, but he knew I was there. And so I would just kind of step out of his line of vision and then eventually he would go to sleep, 'cause he was like, "Okay, I guess, well, Mom, Mom's not here right this second." But yeah the great thing was that while he was in the NICU, he was pretty stable, which was, such a blessing. For the most part, we were never, taking full steps backwards once he was improving in certain ways. So like when he, got intubated early on, and all that is over the next few days, he was graduating from needing that respiratory support instead of he would, graduate from needing support and then would go right back on it. We, thankfully, we're, we were not doing a whole lot of that. But one of the ways that I felt like I was really needing to trust the Lord was with the feeding aspect of things. And so he started out with a feeding tube because he obviously was not able to sustain himself with oral feedings like bottle or breast. and if he did take bottle or breast, it was very, it was, like, very minimal. and so for a big part of the NICU stay, it was just waiting for him to be able to have the strength and endurance to be able to, to feed orally instead of relying on the feeding tube. and so that was probably, a big, a huge part of our NICU stay was just praying that he would Continue to grow in that regard, since he, again, wasn't needing, like, all this major medical intervention. It was just, like, feeding. Anything else you wanna share about that? It was so cool for being able to give him some of those bottles. Mm-hmm. that was a unique way that I was able to, kind of spend time with him and do what I felt was helping, even though I probably did not have good form because the NICU nurses were like, "This is the way you do bottles," and it was not at all how I did bottles with either of our other two kids. Well, but it was paced bottle feeding and our other two, because they didn't really take a lot of bottles, and then also just, they were born full term and healthy and didn't need to have all of the, the support with bottle feedings like he did., And they were obviously very closely monitoring how much, he was taking every single feed. they had him on a strict every three-hour schedule. He would get a diaper change, get his vitals checked, and then do a feeding. And as he got bigger and bigger he graduated more and more how many mLs, milliliters he was feeding. And so just to have that tangible, evidence of okay, today he took X number of mLs, and then the next day we see, what that progress was. whereas with, Ellie and Daniel, we were never measuring it that precisely. And so it became for me like a... I measured so much of my success for him for that day based on how much, how many mLs he was taking by bottle or, transferring at the breast or whatever. And, it became a little maddening for me because, again I wanted... my inclination was to want to control, and I wanted to control how much he was able to take every day, even though we couldn't do that. We literally could not control that. We could just offer it to him, and then he would take what he would take. And so I remember feeling just really discouraged on the days that he was, not super engaged or not showing any interest in feeding. but again, that's where I just felt like the Lord just kept telling me "I will provide. Lay him down. Lay this down because you can't control it." And it just- not having that end date. We had no idea how long he would be in the NICU. I remember when they first told us, "Yeah, he could be here for about a month," like right after he was born. I was like, "There is no way we're gonna be here for a month." This boy's gonna get out of here in a couple weeks. there's no way. And so I think that was partially self-preservation, but also just, my mama heart could not imagine that he would be in there for 25 days. obviously that's not an eternity, but at the time, with not having any idea how long he would actually be there, it felt like a never ending loop of, how... When are we gonna get out of this? I just want him to get out of this place. I want him home. I want him in my arms. I want him unattached from all of these wires and all the, all the things. I just wanted him home in a natural state. But yeah, that's... the feeding journey was such a huge part of this. And then also, because I wanted to breastfeed him, I was getting help from the lactation consultant there at the hospital. And then I had also, a lactation consultant that was, coming to my house even when I was just pumping while he was still in the NICU, giving me pointers, because I also had never just exclusively pumped before. And so there was so much that I learned during that time with the lactation consultants, at the hospital and at home, that were just so encouraging to me because that all felt so new to me. I felt like a first-time mom in that regard, because so much of that, first part of having a newborn is the feeding stuff. But because it was in a completely different context, I felt like a fish out of water. I was like, "What am I doing here?" I don't even know what's going on, half the time. And also pumping was not fun for me. I did not like pumping. It was such a task. It required so much, cleaning of pumping parts and bottles, and, like, all the things. And so that was also just something that I did not have to deal with with exclusively breastfed babies previously. And so that was a really big challenge for me yeah. It felt like half of the kitchen was dedicated to pumping parts- Yes and washing them- Literally half the kitchen and sanitizing, and the drain for that, and just a lot of pumping, a lot of washing, a lot of sanitizing. Mm-hmm. Constantly. Mm-hmm. One thing, though, that I was so happy to be able to do with Isaac and for Isaac being in the NICU and not being able to do a whole lot to be able to, physically help him progress and develop and all that was just praying for him. When I kind of got my turn in the day to be able to go and be with him and I would go hold him and any time that I wasn't giving him a bottle, I would just have him laying on me and I would pray and trying to just be present in the moment and soak up all the time that I could with him. I would literally just pray either in my head or out loud softly, just kind of work my way literally from head to toe, praying for his mind and that it would develop and know God as he grew, praying for his eyes that he would see goodness, that his nose would be able to smell flowers and that his mouth would be able to taste the wonderful food that God put on this earth for us and your cooking and that his ears would hear the chaos of his brother and sister playing in the house and just every single part of him that I could think of as I was holding him and just kind of working my way down from head to toe was just this very sweet thing to know that God thinks about us in that way too, that he had to think of every little bit of our bodies when he was designing us, designing Adam and Eve and that all of those parts work in the way that they do because he designed them in that way and we only function every day because of the goodness with his design and just praying for all of those things to be well-developed and functioning and good for Isaac was a sweet way that I got to just spend some time with him and be in prayer and I think that was a very good and worthwhile thing to be doing when I was able to hold him in the NICU. I think that was a sweet thing that you and I got to be able to do, One silly thing that had to happen because he was in the NICU was- Obviously Ellie and Daniel could not meet him in person in the NICU. And so they got to come over on the weekends, when my parents were there to kind of help. but they would get to see him through the NICU window, and that was sweet, but also just this is so weird, because Ellie got to hold her brother immediately after he was born here at home. And so- Like minutes, an hour after- Yeah for Daniel. And so to be on polar opposite spectrum of, "Here's your brother who's several weeks old," and you're just able to see him through a window is really funny. But, again, I think there was so much grace in that because it did allow Ellie and Daniel just kind of this ramp up period of getting to get acclimated to what was happening, now that Isaac was born. And, I prayed so hard for Daniel. He's such a mama's boy. He's super clingy. And I, every night, or pretty much every night, whenever I would put him down for bed and put him down for naps, I would just pray that the Lord would prepare his heart for when Isaac would come, that he would not feel replaced, he would not feel unloved, that he would, just enjoy Isaac, being there and, like, all the things. And so it was really sweet, seeing his interest in Isaac, even through a window, because I could just, even then tell that Daniel was gonna be such a great big brother, And, and Ellie I knew was gonna be a great big sister. Again, she, she's a natural, like, has natural mothering instincts. But Daniel I was a little concerned about. Very worried that he was gonna be the jealous big brother of, "Wait, no, that's my mom. Why are you spending so much time with her?" Mm-hmm. but even when we were looking through the app and showing him pictures, he would just, "Hi, Isaac." Mm-hmm. So cute, just from the get-go. Yeah. So let's talk about the day he came home, because that was such a mountaintop experience. We... As long as everything kind of went fine throughout those last few days, 'cause he got put on some oxygen, like really low dose oxygen for the last couple days. His oxygen saturation was kind of hanging out kind of lower. and then they slowly weaned him off of it. And as long as he went 48 hours of doing well without the oxygen, continued to do full, bottle feeds or breast feeds, he was able to come home. So that morning, this was day 25, we get there, and my mom and sisters, I remember kept telling me, like- Just expect it to kind of take some time to get discharged and all this stuff. And I was like, "I'm pretty sure they're gonna get us out of there pretty quick," 'cause I, being in the NICU for 25 days, I got to watch several families go home. And so I was like, "I'm pretty sure it's gonna take no time at all." And sure enough, we get there, and they're just like, "Okay he's good to go. Let's start getting his paperwork and all the things." And I was like, "Oh, what?" I... It just felt weird then to be like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot believe we are finally taking him home." they, they did the car seat test where they put him in the car seat for 90 minutes just to make sure he's stable in that position. And he passed, and, there was, like, literally nothing left to do besides just the paperwork. And then we got to load him up in the little car seat. He looked so tiny in his car seat. And, yeah. What was your experience on that last day of the NICU? I thought it was so cool walking in. Obviously, I think the last five or six days that he was in the NICU, everybody was just had this anticipation of, "Okay, is this the day that he gets this milestone checked off? Is this the day that he gets this thing done and now we move on to the next final step?" sort of a thing. so it was so cool in the day or two leading up as we would go to visit when the nurses and the doctors were like, "We're pretty sure he's gonna be good to go. He just needs to still be good through this, 48-hour monitoring of no oxygen, so we kind of just got to a point where "Okay, he's good. We just need to make sure that he's good for two days, and then he goes home." And every time we walked in and every time we left "Okay, nothing happened. That's a great thing. And we'd call at 5:30 in the morning to say, "Hi, NICU nurse. What's the latest?" And she'd go, "It was uneventful. He did great." And we go, "Perfect." We're coming to get him. Yep. So yeah, that morning anticipating that, "Wow we're gonna be able to bring him home today," after 25 days of emotional roller coaster and high highs and low lows and, all of the trying times that came with such a long stay. Yeah, at the time, it was the longest 25 days of my life. But in now looking back on it, I think partially it's my- my brain trying to protect itself, but it feels like a blimp. You know? Like, it's just like boop. Like, just hap- a, a blip. A blip on the radar. Not a blimp. Not a blimp. Um, but yeah we got video of, Isaac coming home, and Ellie and Daniel were there to welcome him. And the cutest thing about all of that was, again Daniel's obsession with him. Again, I knew Ellie would be obsessed but I did not anticipate Daniel's reaction. He kept saying over and over "I wanna hold him. I wanna hold Isaac." he gave him a kiss right on the mouth, which I was like, "So cute," but please kiss him on the head going forward. W- we're not trying to introduce all these germs to him. but yeah. What was your feeling about when we got to finally bring him home and the kids' reaction? I remember being very surprised, at the sweetness with which Daniel greeted Isaac. we had told the kids right from the get-go, "When we get him home, you guys get to see him. You can hold him if he's in the right kind of a mood." And, so we walked in and let Ellie hold, Isaac, and two seconds into Ellie holding Isaac, Daniel is just, hold Isaac." And he was getting upset about not being the one to be able to hold his little brother. And, Daniel is a big now two-year-old. but he was our baby boy until Isaac came around, and then all of a sudden, our baby boy, when he was holding our actual tiny baby boy, looked like a giant. It was so bizarre to see him in now such a big, new light of, "Okay, well, now he's a big brother and a little brother," and he gets to step into that role, which he has done so well for this whole stretch of time. But yeah, we got to be whole, which I prayed for every single day from the day Isaac was born until we got him home, and I thank God every day since that we get to be whole and home and together. Yeah. and Isaac is doing so well. So he's, at the time we're recording this, he's almost four months old, like a couple, less than two weeks shy of four months old, and he is gaining weight beautifully exceeding his growth curve. He just slept through the night for his first night last night, praise the Lord. And, What a fun milestone to be able to- I know say immediately in the podcast. Yeah. He is meeting, like, all his milestones based on his adjusted age him being preemie, which, all of the, just the ways that we had to kind of understand him being preemie was, like, a whole learning thing in and of itself. But because of his adjusted age, which went off of his due date, is how the pediatrician and everyone will be looking at his milestones, instead of his actual, birth day, until he's two-ish. but meeting all of his milestones based on his adjusted or corrected age. another huge blessing is, by the grace of God, and many lactation consultants' help, he is exclusively breastfeeding, so we're not doing, pumping and bottles with him. He's just nursing, and that was huge. The victory that has been for all of us has been so incredible. Not only just that it's, the nutrition aspect and all that just so thankful that the Lord would allow me to continue to nurse him, but just even the logistical ease of being able to just breastfeed him instead of doing pumping and then bottle feeding and then cleaning everything, And so to just be able to nurse and the closeness that we get from that I'm so thankful. There were a lot of big victory milestone-type days, but the day I got to pack up the bottle washer and sanitizer and get it off the counter and move it into our laundry room for storage was a huge win. but yeah, I feel like my biggest takeaway from all of this, and I'll have you share yours too, was just that, the Lord will provide, that He absolutely provided for us and sustained us in ways that I would have, again, never chosen for myself. I would have never chosen for this to be the story that the Lord had for me, but this is the story the Lord had for us. And the closeness and the beauty and the trust and the joy in all of that is such a gift from the Lord. And- I mentioned in the first part or the part one episode how the Lord kept impressing upon me to pray for the birth experience and everything to be something where I experience, the Lord's, love and his joy, and I trust him more. And I can honestly say, based on where we're at and what all we've walked through these last four months or so, that all of those things came to pass by the grace of God, and that- that's such a blessing in spite of all the hardship that had to, be walked through. Yeah, I think the big thing that I take away in reflecting and in the day-to-day through everything, is wisdom is the Lord's, and he will give that as a blessing. He will give that through experience. He will give that through the experience of others. and in going through Isaac's NICU stay and his birth and talking with so many other, dads and friends, hearing about their experiences and not realizing that some of their children also had NICU stays and how their family had to navigate that, I got this, wonderful closeness with people that I was able to empathize more with and that they were able to walk alongside me with, and our family, with what we were going through and trying to experience. we had three very different, birth experiences with our kids, postpartum experiences, labor and delivery, all the things were very unique for each of the three of our kiddos, and being able to now have some of that wisdom through that experience from God saying, "You're gonna be a family that, that has a lot to be able to, to share with others, to be able to just try and love on them well." I'm thankful that he blessed us with these experiences, that he stayed close with us, that he protected and provided and loved us even on the days where it felt like things were spiraling out of control. and even since Isaac was born, had, another friend and his family have to do a NICU stay, while we were still just on the other side of getting Isaac home, so being able to just, be with him a little bit and share what we went through with our family and our experience and just being an ear and a shoulder for him to be able to kind of lean on in- Something that was very new for him and his family. So that was a wonderful blessing that God has given us to be able to leverage for sake of others and for His glory. We ended up taking some newborn photos here at the house, with Erin, our birth photographer/newborn photographer. and so if you would like to see some of those photos, if you go to the show notes, there's gonna be a link to the full blog post, and you can check out some of those. I'm so excited for you, baby, to be able to come on and share your side of the story. And, yeah, just wanna give glory to the Lord for all that He did and in through Isaac's birth story and this postpartum story, and all the ways that He met us and have already allowed us to, love on and empathize with other people going through, just really hard stuff after having a baby. He never wastes our hurts. The Lord never wastes our hurts. And, He's such a good God, and I'm excited to see what all He does in the rest of Isaac's story. Anything else you wanna share? no. Just happy to be on the, on the show today. Love you. I love you. That's it for today's episode. 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