Ep #45: NICU Survival: How to Keep Your Sanity & Find Silver Linings with Margaret Mason Tate

Welcome to Parenthood Prep, the only show that helps sleep-deprived parents and overwhelmed parents-to-be successfully navigate those all-important early years with their baby, toddler, and child. If you are ready to provide the best care for your newborn, manage those toddler tantrums and grow with your child, you’re in the right place. Now here’s your host, baby and parenting expert, Devon Clement. 

Devon: Hello, and welcome back to Parenthood Prep. Today, we have one of our favorite guests, Margaret Mason Tate, back. And we are going to talk about what it’s like when your baby ends up in the NICU. And obviously, the general sort of understanding is that it’s for preemies, babies that are super early, but it can also happen in any situation. 

You can have a full-term baby who maybe has a small breathing issue or has a feeding issue or maybe your baby’s a little early, but not super early, but just developmentally not fully there, or they can have a health issue even after seeming totally normal that puts them back in the NICU, which is what happened to Margaret, which is why she’s here to talk to us about her experience, as well as share some tips about how to get through the experience with your sanity reasonably intact and some self-care tips for after.

We’re not trying to scare you or traumatize you. We’re going to talk about some good things that can come out of a NICU experience and again how to care for yourself so that you don’t end up with some lasting anxieties or issues. It can certainly happen when your baby is sick or has some challenges. So welcome back, Margaret.

Margaret: Hi, I’m so happy to be here.

Devon: Yes. And can you just remind us quickly who you are and why we love you?

Margaret: You and other people like you love me because you are an elder millennial person who is a little neurodivergent and a lot gifted and talented. You grew up, you burnt out, and now you’re wondering what the F. So I’m a coach and a consultant for people and businesses that align with what I just said.

Devon: I love that. I love that. And you’ve been my coach for years and I love having you on the podcast to talk about all things early parenting and how to get through that, especially when you are someone who you just described.

Margaret: Yeah, we met 10 years ago this April.

Devon: That’s crazy.

Margaret: It’s our 10 year anniversary.

Devon: And you are coming up on your 11th anniversary of being a parent. Which is exciting and surreal because we have not aged. I don’t understand how… 

Margaret: Yeah, I still feel very confused. 

Devon: Kids grow up and we stay the same age. It’s great. So let’s just briefly talk about what does the NICU look like? What is the routine there? What does it feel like when your baby ends up in the NICU? Because sometimes going in, we are having the baby early, there’s some kind of complication, you can prepare yourself, but more often than not, it’s unexpected.

Margaret: Yeah. And I think the unexpectedness of it really adds to it. So hopefully just like this description will help even one person to know what it’s like. 

So most NICUs in this particular country are open air. They have lots of bassinets. They have some babies in what they’re going to call A or B or 1 or 2 or whatever. And it’s like a grading system of of severity for what you’re going to be seeing. 

And that seems like sometimes it might be weird with privacy. But honestly, it’s really cool because you get to know these other people who are also dealing with this thing that only people who have been inside of the NICU on the parent side or know what it’s like. And it becomes this weird kind of club.You’re looking over in the other bassinet and you’re like, yes. All right. We’re doing good. 

You’re going to have open air. There are scenarios where you’re in a children’s hospital, which is like my situation. I had the weird experience of going to NICU in one hospital and then being discharged and then having a medical event and rushing to Children’s. And that is how I was able to have a weird coincidental situation where I had my like private space with my baby. 

Devon: Okay. 

Margaret: And like a chair. 

Devon: Yeah, because I have heard this from clients that once you have left the hospital, they actually will not allow you back into the NICU because of possible outside germs and things like that, that the only babies that are in the like true NICU at the hospital where they were born are babies who have never left.

Margaret: Yes, and we were actually admitted into the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, PICU, which is the pediatric ICU. And we were really fortunate that there was a neonatal team that advocated for Hamish to not be in PICU because their treatment plan just wasn’t right.

Devon: He was days old, right?

Margaret: Yeah, he was born on the 13th and this happened on the 17th. And then he was in PICU for three days and then we moved to NICU and it was a totally different ballgame.

Devon: Yeah, yeah, cause that’s their specialty is those brand new babies. Honestly, it’s like I talk about with postpartum doulas and newborn care specialists versus a nanny or somebody like that. The difference between a six-week-old baby and a 16-week-old baby is so huge. 10 weeks ago, I was basically the exact same person. 10 weeks ago, a baby was an entirely different species.

Margaret: It’s absolutely insane how much they develop and how specific the behaviors are. Even in the NICU, people are people, babies are babies. So you’re dealing with these developmental milestones and trying to hit these so that you can either be discharged or improve your health, hopefully get well.

Devon: So I’ve been a few times with clients when I’ve gone to support them there. And one thing I’ve noticed is that they try to set it up so that you’re a little bit comfortable. There’s usually like a nice comfortable chair for whoever’s there visiting the baby, the mother, the father, whatever parent is there to sit in either right next to the bassinet or so that you can hold the baby if you’re able to do that. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t, depending on the issues. What is it like, the routine of being there?

Margaret: Yes, you get in and usually hospital rounds are at about 7:30 am and 7:30 pm. And if you’d like to be present for those, if you’re invited to be present for those, that’s a really great way of hearing all of the information that you want or need to hear. So I like to get there about seven rounds at 7:30. You get all the pertinent information. And then there’s just like with a newborn at home, it’s just, it’s all about the feeding and the pooping and the holding if you can.

Devon: Yeah. So basically your routine is similar. Feed the baby every however many hours, put them back to sleep, change the diaper, that kind of thing. And how are the staff as far as like the parents being involved, obviously in a situation where it’s not teeny tiny preemie or they’re hooked up to a lot of wires and things like that, and you can hold them or care for them? Are they usually pretty open to that?

Margaret: Yes, they’re so open to that, especially if you’re in a children’s hospital. Can’t speak highly enough of that if you have access to it, but every NICU nurse I have ever encountered has been so clear on the reality of their observed experience and of the scientific literature that says as much as babies who are in the NICU can hear a parent’s voice, can feel a parent’s touch, can smell a parent’s body, can get used to the rhythms of family life as much as they can possibly facilitate that they will. And they, oh man, I just thought of another plus. I know we were gonna have a time for silver linings, but can I just say-

Devon: I think we can weave them in as well?

Margaret: The pump that they had me use, honey, it was the Rolls Royce. 

Devon: I love that. I was going to say every nursing parent I’ve had come out of the NICU, whatever, I’m not going to say every, nearly every has been a milk machine because you are just sitting there and you are pumping and you have this fancy pump and you just have all these reasons why your supply is going to, if you’re able to, your supply is going to just absolutely flourish versus coming home two days later, trying to nurse even full-term baby who like is not great at it and not interested in it and just having all these other responsibilities that you’re like doing and you’re physically recovering from the birth but also trying to feed yourself and take care of yourself.

I think that one of the silver linings for me that I have always thought is, we send parents home from the hospital so early. My mother talks about having me, she had a C-section in 1981, she was in the hospital for a week. And I went to the nursery every night and she got a full night’s sleep. She’s, I would call and say, bring me my baby. And they would bring me. And then she would be like, take my baby away. And they would take me. Like, she said, it’s like a vacation.

Now it’s so different. It’s like this baby comes out and you’re like, okay, bye. Go home, deal with it. I know that sounds great. Sometimes I talk to a first time parent that’s like, the first night home, we really just want to be together as a family. And I’m like, I know you think you do.

Margaret: Absolute idiocy. I’m saying it. I know you can’t because you’re the gracious host of this lovely neutral podcast, but I’m here to tell you I pitched a absolute royal fit, Delvedene, and I demanded to be discharged at I did my son wasn’t because he was in the NICU, but I demanded to be discharged at 8 p.m. My child was born at 10, 11 or 10, 12 a.m. And I was admitted at 6 something.

Devon: You went home that same day?

Margaret: Absolutely I did. And pitched a fit to do it. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Devon: Yeah, they send you home. And if you don’t have a postpartum doula, or you have one, but you’ve rejected them coming the first night, which I will say most people do come around even if they didn’t think they wanted it and then they’re in the hospital right after the birth and they’re like, you know what, we actually do want the doula to come the first night because this is wild. 

So they send you home after what is likely the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to your body. Even if you had the best birth in the world, you still pushed a baby out, got very little sleep, you have a lot of adrenaline, and now you’re getting home and you and your partner or whoever is with you are taking care of a baby alone for possibly the first time in your life. Or you have another child, so this is old hat, but now you’re going home to your other child and this newborn and your dog and visitors.

They send you home with bags of stuff. You don’t even know what it is. In the typical experience, I think also for NICU parents, especially first timers, there’s a little bit of an idealism. I don’t want to be here in the hospital. I want to be home with my baby. But like it sucks. The first week or so sucks. So…

Margaret: Look, we were there for 23 days until my son was one month old. And I got to tell you, I didn’t have to cook anything. I didn’t have to clean. I cleaned constantly. I cleaned pump parts. I cleaned bottle parts. I cleaned everything all the time in that tiny little cubicle place instead of my enormous house. And I did. I was one of those people. I had a 10-year-old stepson when I had Hamish. Balancing that was wild. Yeah. It was a little bit of a break.

Devon: Yeah, yeah. That can be tough. Certainly when you have other kids at home and you’re going back and forth to the hospital. And sometimes what happens is you have twins and they’re not both there. One gets sent home and then you have one baby at home and one baby in the hospital. And that is extremely difficult. 

But also your time at the hospital with your baby is a little bit of a break, more than it would be at home. And again, it feels so ideal to just, you wanna be with your baby all the time, but you can go home and get a good night’s sleep. Even if you’re waking up to pump, it’s different from being woken up every 10 minutes by the baby going, which they do even if they’re sleeping peacefully. Your baby is safe and sound in the hospital.

The nurses are taking care of them. They’re on monitors, like they’re being fed. The nurses will do it. And if you want to spend some time away from the hospital during the day to go home and be with your other kids or whatever, or be with your other baby, that baby is going to be so well taken care of and you can recover.

Margaret: One of the things that I wish that I had allowed myself to do was do what my body wanted to do, which was go run. At that time I was a big runner. I was a track star. And what I wanted to do, because I had all of this cortisol and all of this epinephrine and all of these different stress hormones and urgent emergent hormones just coursing through my body. 

Once we were stabilized and out of the PICU, recovery was long, but totally easy. The first little bit of it was what I had to get over. And I really wish that I had let myself go running because my body really wanted to. And I regret deeply not listening to her.

Devon: I love that. I do want to add a disclaimer that I do not generally think it is a good idea to run when you are less than six weeks postpartum. I know that’s usually recommended. So let’s just put out there that you want to go by what your doctor tells you is okay, but even just a light walk outside or kind of something to work out the hormones in your body.

Margaret: My joke has always been that Hamish gave me the most easy peasy peasy delivery situation. I had absolutely no medicine, no daring, no anything. I hopped as soon as I could. I hopped up off the table and was like, I’d do that again. Like it was, I said that out loud. Can you imagine?

Devon: No, I cannot. I’ve never done it and I don’t want to do it.

Margaret: And not only that, but I’ve never in my life wanted more than one child. And at that point I had a 100% increase in that at home. I certainly didn’t want a third child. I don’t know why I said that, but I did. Just physically, I was batting a thousand. The baby health was not great, but he did me right with the birthing process.

Devon: Yeah, that can happen. It can be a shock sometimes, full term babies. We get emails from clients that are like, the baby’s here, we’re going to be home this day. And then that day they’re like, oops, JK, we’re spending a couple of days here. The baby has jaundice. The baby is not feeding right. They haven’t XYZ. Sometimes the birthing parent has to stay, they have some issues and then of course they usually let the baby stay with you. And it can be a surprise. It can be a surprise.

But when you have this experience, you do get the support and the help caring for the baby and caring for yourself. So that can definitely be a bright spot in a challenging situation. And I think we’re going to talk about some tips for managing it, but I think perspective can be really important. And so looking for the gratitude of, I can just sit here and hold my baby and someone else is going to bring me food. I’m not really thinking about what’s going on at home.

I’m not sitting on the couch with the baby going, ugh, I should really organize those papers or whatever, whatever things that you would be doing if you were home that you’re just like, nope, I’m here doing this instead. And they’re going to take care of the, oh shit, I left the diapers upstairs. That’s not a thing. The diapers are right there. Everything is right there.

Margaret: They’re always right there. And you know what? They’re ever stocked. They’re always freshly stocked. The supply, if you are a supply hound like me and you really, like I had my little rolling cart and I had all my, oh, it was divine.

Devon: Everything is just there ready for you. Obviously not every nurse is an angel on earth, although most are, but those NICU nurses and the support. 

Margaret: So I went home to sleep because I had a nurse who sat me down and was like, all right buddy, you have to leave and it’s not because you’re doing anything wrong but you have to get some real REM sleep. Some real sleep. And she said that, looking back, I realize because my supply had taken a weird kind of dip, and NICU is actually – if you’re exclusively nursing or exclusively pumping for that, they’re considering you the supplier of the food, insurance-wise. This is crazy. And that is why I was able to get fed from the children’s hospital. They sent meals and snacks and all kinds of stuff. It’s considered a swap, right?

Devon: Sure. Instead of feeding the baby, they’re feeding you.

Margaret: Yeah. But she told me that.

Devon: That’s why I actually don’t think breastfeeding is 0 dollars compared to formula feeding because you have to feed that supply.

Margaret: I promise you, they have a cake. They have a chocolate cake at the children’s hospital. That is so good that I went to the Children’s Hospital at one of our follow-up appointments at maybe eight or nine months and asked them, where are you ordering? Is it Cisco? What distributor would I have to contact Because I wanted it for Hamish’s first birthday. 

Devon: Aww. 

Margaret: Because I ate so much of that cake. If I were going to get it at Magnolia Bakery, a piece of this cake, literally every day for 20 days…

Devon: Amazing, you deserve it. 

Margaret: It would have been so many thousands of dollars.

Devon: So we’ll add NICU silver lining. Sometimes there’s really good cake. 

Margaret: Unbelievable. 

Devon: I love that. I had the best bagel I’ve ever had. And I say this not like significantly better than other good bagels. I live in New York City, but like such an amazing bagel when I took my friend in for her double mastectomy for breast cancer and I was waiting with her in the hospital and the poor thing couldn’t eat. And I had to bring her there pretty early in the morning, but then of course we were waiting forever. And I was like, I’m starving. I have to go get something from like the, it was like a little mini satellite cafeteria on her floor.

And I’m like, I’m just gonna grab a bagel and I’m eating this bagel. And I was like, oh my God, I am so sorry. This bagel is so good. She was like, fuck you. She’s like, I can’t eat. I’m about to have surgery. Shut up about the bagel.

Margaret: I don’t get to have boobs or a bagel and I want both right now. Yeah. I hate that.

Devon: I still think about it. I like I’ll be in the neighborhood and I’m like, should I just stop in to the hospital? And just…

Margaret: I swear to God, if you didn’t have to, okay. Parking, yeah, also amazing situation. People will not agree with me that this is great, but I live in temperate Georgia, so It was really lovely. You quite literally, not an exaggeration, had to walk about three quarters of a mile from parking through parking garages, winding around, going up the right set of elevators to the… This place is enormous. I walked so much.

Devon: Yeah, you’re right. That sounds terrible. I don’t agree with you. That’s great. But I love it for you. I love it for you.

Margaret: I loved it.

Devon: I’m just thinking about right now when it’s like 28 degrees and I barely want to leave my house. I would not want to be traipsing through three quarters of a mile of icy park. I almost slipped on the sidewalk yesterday on ice.

Margaret: I have bagel weather. It’s 74 degrees and sunny here. I have bagel weather. I’m so sorry. 

Devon: Jesus Christ.

Margaret: Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to throw out there that another thing that hit me was that you’re thrust into this kind of club that people aren’t, they’re just not privy to. I can’t explain it. It just exists. This unspoken kind of feeling that NICU parents have for each other in the presence of each other, etc.

People you’ve never met in your life, you’ll hear, oh, they’re in the NICU and you’re like, oh, hey, I have some suggestions. And if you don’t want to take them a meal, then I will. One of the cool things that I wanted to show you is I made a friend who is a lifelong friend and she’s actually a friend of yours, Kimberly Snyder. 

Devon: Oh, yes. She had a little bit of a special situation.

Margaret: She did. She had triplets who were micro preemie and they advocated like hell for those babies. And now those wonderful babies are teenagers this year, I think.

Devon: Oh, so you weren’t in the NICU with her. She was a NICU mentor for you.

Margaret: She was a NICU mentor because she had been through it. They were there for over 100 days. And then you talk about it like wars with it. She did 100 days towards Emory. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it’s really a thing.

And she brought me three things that I would like to recommend to anybody. She brought me, because my son was born right around Easter, she brought me Cadbury eggs, the one with the outside. Oh my God, a bag of those. She brought me a card and the card had a little trinket on it and it says hope and I still have it. I would love it if you should be following @happyfamilyafter on Instagram.

We’ll post this today, a picture of this little thing that I took off of a card. It’s not even a big deal, but like, it really got me through. And we bonded over that in such a way. And we honestly wouldn’t have, we don’t have very much in common. We wouldn’t have probably connected in that way if she hadn’t shown up for me. But it really does inspire you to pay that forward.

Devon: I love that. I know I have a few friends who have had NICU babies and they do a lot for other parents. There’s an organization I want to say is called One Day at a Time, but we’ll link it in the show notes and in the Instagram post that provides like just things, little things for the parents and the babies. I know she takes her, she has three NICU kids, and she takes them like back to the hospital once a year and like visits the nurses and all that. You really form a bond with the staff and just I think the other, obviously the other parents that you’re there with and really can be a guide to other families in that situation.

Margaret: Yeah, I’d love to recommend like you’re saying most NICUs have reunions. And I would love to recommend that you attend. You might think if you miss your first one that it doesn’t make sense to go. Absolutely. Go as long as you need to. As long as you need to or as long as you want to. Kid’s almost 11, I’m not still doing a whole lot of NICU stuff. My friends are mostly not having children anymore, people in my network, etc. But for that season, for the season that you’re in it, it’s nice to participate in it. And it feels, camaraderie feels really good.

Devon: And you’re doing this, you’re still talking about it, you’re still sharing about it, you’re still providing guidance and stuff like that. So I think that that’s something that lasts forever. I remember my ex-boyfriend, his younger brother was born super early, like I think 25 weeks or 23 weeks maybe. 

So you would actually think, oh my God, that was so long ago. How did he survive? But actually babies were doing better in the 80s than they’re doing now statistically. And I’m not 100% sure why that is, but it was a good time to be born. Like the early to mid 80s were a great time to be born in terms of health and survival. And don’t come at me with, but it wasn’t for this, that, and the other thing. It’s just in general, they were having good outcomes at that time.

The crazy thing about their experience was that they were on vacation in Vermont. Happened to be near, I think the number one or number two NICU in the country. She goes into labor. She has the baby in this hospital and they couldn’t, he was too fragile to move or transfer. So he’s in Vermont. She had to go back to New Jersey after however many days because he was going to be in there for a while. They couldn’t stay up there. She had my ex at home. He was two or three or whatever. They couldn’t just move everybody up there. Her husband had work. She eventually went back to work while he was still in the hospital, but they would go up every weekend.

I think Tim would stay with his grandparents. They would go up and oh my God, I’m going to cry talking about it. All she could talk about was how great the nurses were. They would have a phone call every night. She had this scrapbook of just all the photos they would take, all her notes. She would write a note every day based on the phone call that they would have. And it was neat reading them all together because it was like, oh, this scary thing might be happening. Oh, actually, it’s okay. Oh, they’re worried about this. Actually, it’s okay.

Like he just did super well and did well and is a grown adult and he’s on the small side, but that’s it. And this experience that she had and she’s still 30-some years later, just spoke so fondly. The funny part of that story is that this was back in the olden days where nobody had caller ID, we didn’t have cell phones, the phone on the wall rang and God knows who it was. 

Could be anybody, could be literally anyone. So she calls her sister from the hospital in Vermont and her sister answers and of course, nobody’s expecting her to have the baby anytime soon. She’s three months out from her due date. And she says, “Barb, I’ve had the baby.” Her sister said, “Who is this? What the fuck are you talking about? 

Margaret: Oh my God. It’s so funny because I, because you’re one of my best friends. I don’t know if people know that. We happen to be very close friends. And I moved a year ago. And you know that I was only just last year comfortable getting rid of Hamish’s, like, file, like his medical everything that we really didn’t need anymore. And it was so cool that it was time. And it was also so cool to see that those notes, like I wrote those notes. The digital age does not change who we are as humans, as we know from Tim’s mom making the notes.

Devon: Every night. Yeah. Writing the notes from the call and then going up on the weekends, being with him and then coming back. It was a journey. So now I want to talk about my favorite silver lining of the NICU, the schedule.

Every baby that comes out of the NICU is on such a glorious schedule. Even if they’re only in a couple of days. And every parent is on this glorious schedule. We don’t have to force it. We don’t have to fight it.

We don’t have to figure it out. The parents don’t have to figure it out. The nurses just put you on a schedule and they put the baby on a schedule and you are just in this routine that just, there’s just no choice. And so you come home and it continues and you just maintain this beautiful routine. I know it’s not ideal in a non-NICU situation to put like a tiny baby on a super strict schedule but when it is something that you have been forced to do due to circumstances, it is great.

Margaret: Yeah, my mom’s dead and there’s nothing that I like about that having happened. But I’m gonna say that there are a few things that I wouldn’t have otherwise, like a clean house, she was so messy. And I’m gonna take that win where I can’t because I don’t have a choice. You know, you don’t have a choice whether to be in the NICU or not. It’s if you’re there, it’s nine and a half times out of 10, like the best possible place.

Devon: What you’re saying is if you’re there, it’s because you have to be there. 

Margaret: Yeah. 

Devon: Yeah. And it’s the best place for your baby.

Margaret: And it’s the best possible place. This is the best option. And if you’re going to deal with the option, sucking some, part of dealing with that, I think in my experience and in my observation of others, it has to be looking for those silver linings. And I got to tell you, the schedule is incredible. And my child has slept well from forever. He’s an incredible sleeper. Except for that one time that he woke up and wanted an apple.

Devon: God, I love that. This is just older parenting advice that I love from you is he woke up and he said, mom, he came into your room and he said, mom, I want an apple. And you said, okay, go get one. You know where they are. 

Margaret: I’m not trying to stop you from living your best life.

Devon: Yeah, like I’m not going to get it for you, but you go ahead. You go right ahead. 

Margaret: Yeah, you might not have noticed because I was so quiet, but I was asleep.

Devon: So yeah, I think that it’s obviously not what anyone would choose, but when it is what you have to do, there are some positives. There are some silver linings. You get taken care of in those early days of your recovery. Get the baby on a schedule. You have those nurses teaching you how to take care of your baby and supporting you and guiding you and cheering you on and encouraging you so much, which unless you have a postpartum doula, which many people do not, you’re not getting at home.

Margaret: Yeah, for sure. And they also, those nurses know specifically what to cheerlead. You know what I’m saying? So when I was pumping, every time I gave them milk, every single time, they’d be like, oh, thank you, you’re amazing. This is so great. And every time I could feel the flush of warm loveliness in my body, like they know they’re cheering you on because it’s good and right. But what is good and right also is really good for our bodies.

Devon: And a lot of the time when you come home by yourself with your partner and you have your family members or whatever… 

Margaret: And your shitty pump that everybody else has and not the good hospital. Not the Rolls Royce pump. Oh my God. 

Devon: They’re questioning you, giving you advice you don’t want. It’s nice when you have that cheerleading and maybe you encourage your friends and family at home, whether your baby’s in the NICU or not, to give you that support, that cheering on, because it’s so important. And do that for your friends when they have babies.

If they’re pumping, if they’re formula feeding, whatever they’re doing, look at that burp you got, like the baby to do, like whatever, like you’re doing a great job and help them keep their diapers stocked so that they feel the abundance of having a full thing of diapers at the ready, the luxury of that. Yeah. So just getting sleep at night, even though you’re not with your baby, I’m sure there’s parents that are home with their newborn that are going, I secretly wish that someone else could just take care of you for a couple of hours so that I could get some solid sleep. And that’s huge.

So again, having some support for that in those early days so that you are able to physically recover from the thing that your body just did. We work with families that have adopted or used surrogates because of fertility stuff or because they’re a gay couple or whatever. And the difference between just your physical ability to do anything when you have not given birth versus when you have. I’ve said it a million times, this system is very stupid, like the biological evolution. It’s very stupid.

Margaret: We are left vulnerable for way too long.

Devon: Way too long and expected to now care for a baby and it’s wild. So when you have any opportunity to have someone care for you or care for the baby so that you can recover, that’s tremendous. And we, in the right way, of course, you don’t want like your mother coming over in the middle of the day and saying, “I’ll take the baby so you can vacuum the house.” Like that’s not what I’m talking about. But like you have a friend that’s a night owl, like, “I’ll go over to any of my friends that have a baby.

I’ll come at 9 and stay till 2 in the morning and just look over the baby while you get some real sleep.” I’m obviously good at this, but you don’t even have to have somebody who’s like an expert. It could just be somebody that’s, “Here’s how you hold and rock the baby. If they wake up, just do this and give me a couple hours to sleep.” Actually, a girlfriend, I talk about her a lot, my girlfriend who is a single mom by choice, when she had the baby, she’d asked me a couple of days into babysit because she had to go to an appointment.

I was like, “Of course, I’d be so happy to.” And then this was a couple of years ago and I had been exposed to COVID just before. And so unfortunately I had to tell her that. And of course she didn’t want me to do the babysitting, which of course not. But then she was scrambling to find a friend, somebody who’s able to babysit. And she asked our other friend who was like, “I’ve never taken care of a newborn baby before.” And she goes, “I hadn’t either until two days ago. It’s fine. Like, you’ll be fine. I figured it out. You will too.”

Margaret: I do not have much more experience and I’m going to have to tell you, it’s going to be just fine.

Devon: You’re going to be just fine. Like she was nursing, she’ll feed him right before I leave. I’ll be gone for an hour. You’ll be fine. And it was. It was fine. Absolutely. But what a gift to have the most experienced, most trained, most expert people on earth caring for your baby while you were home with your other kids or home sleeping or just getting some rest and some recovery. Okay, let’s talk about tips for staying sane, self-care during and after.

Margaret: Yeah, you’re not going to actually get any type of medal or trophy or ribbon, I asked, for never ever leaving and feeling the sunlight on your skin. I walked through the parking garage and got into an elevator and that was the only time I was ever outside. I walked to my car and that was it and that was in the dark. This is in March. So feel the sunlight on your skin.

Devon: Yeah, because it’s not, unfortunately, it’s a hospital. It’s a big floor. You’re not getting a lot of natural light coming in through the windows. It’s a lot of fluorescent lighting.

Margaret: It’s so much fluorescent lighting. And it’s also just such a tremendous amount of noise pollution. That was kind of the most difficult thing to get over in the immediate aftermath was like the, just all of the beeping and the noises getting outside. Even traffic is preferable to the beeping. Any noise, sirens, frankly, like fire trucks would be preferable to the beeping because your system isn’t attuned to associate those sounds with like emergent baby things. Get outside. I’m a big believer.

Devon: If you just leave and step outside of the hospital for 30 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever.

Margaret: Yeah, literally. Yeah. Like that’s where I’m envisioning when I’m saying this, I’m actually imagining Hamish’s first outside time was in the courtyard of the hospital. Yeah.

So get outside, feel the sunlight on your skin. If you can in your car, yell and sing loudly. I know that sounds like venting or mental relief or whatever. It’s actually just about your vagus nerve and the activation of that and how that is going to attune you to the rest of your surroundings and how you can help flush all of the really ever-present yuckiness out of your system.

Devon: Also, I’m just envisioning you’re sitting there, the nurse are coming over to talk to you or maybe your partner’s there or a family member and you’re just speaking in this like soft voice and you’re not going to be like blasting your music and singing show tunes at the top of your lungs like you would at home if you’re me, for example. So just being able to release some of that energy from your body and reset your nervous system.

Margaret: Burn it off. One of the best memories that I have, and if you’re going through NICU right now and you’re listening to this, I just want you to know that there will be best memories. Like there will be, oh, that’s, this was the best memory of the NICU. 

I had to go through a part of Atlanta called Decatur, where it’s greater, in order to get from my house in East Atlanta to Eggleston, which is no longer a hospital. And there was a foot race. There was the, I believe it was the Publix Georgia half marathon, a race that I had run myself. 

And I could have gone around and gotten to the hospital a little bit sooner, but I didn’t. And I parked my car and got out and just hollered for people. Just screamed their names and said I was proud of them and said that they were doing a great job and said everything that I needed to hear to other people and just screamed at the top of my lungs for as long as I needed to and then went around and went into the hospital. But I, that is one of the most beneficial things that I think I did the whole time I was in there. Highly recommend.

Devon: And it’s so easy to do. You don’t need anything. Just get in your car or get home or step outside and you just maybe not step outside at the hospital and start screaming. That’s not great.

Margaret: Let’s not do that.

Devon: But in your car, totally great. Just to get that out. I love the marathon day. I love the marathon day in New York. You just cheer for people and it’s just so exciting and fabulous. And I’m sure it’s doing something to my nervous system to be cheering and screaming for everyone that runs by.

Margaret: It is. It’s called resonant tuning. It absolutely is. That’s why the whole city feels high and proud and all of that. It’s called resonant tuning.

Devon: We just even if like we usually know one or two people like casually that are running and looking for them on the tracker or whatever, but mostly just screaming at strangers. Okay. So tip number one, yell and scream and sing loud. That is beautiful. Look for the silver linings. We talked about that. And maybe talking to other parents that have had babies, whether they were in the NICU or not. I’m going to say this is going to sound crazy, but ask them what sucked about that experience and then be a little bit smug that you didn’t have to deal with that because your baby was in the NICU.

Margaret: Correct. You will lose some of the smugness opportunities. And so you’re going to have to make that up as a NICU parent. You’re really going to have to dig deep and you’re going to have to find those.

Devon: You’re having trouble getting your baby on a schedule and sleeping through the night? I didn’t really have to worry about that. My baby’s on a perfect schedule. Yeah. I just can’t help how much I’m pumping because I have this great-

Margaret: That’s exactly what mine was. Like, oh, my oversupply. I also really loved and continue to love.

Devon: Which no shame if that is not what happened to you. Absolutely. Like you’re not a failure. There’s nothing wrong with you if you didn’t have a massive supply or whatever or didn’t even just chose not to do that. That’s totally fine.

Margaret: No, I just will tell you many things.

Devon: We’ll tell you what to be smug about. Absolutely. It’s great.

Margaret: If we want to support you in your smugness, there’s no better way to say that. 

Devon: We want to support you in your smugness. And if you want to be petty about other people, we will help you with that too.

Margaret: Please consult. Again, if you’re not following @HappyFamilyAfter, I am the voice behind that sometimes and would love to hear from you in the comments of those posts. But another really…

Devon: Or you can call, you can go to the website, we have a leave a voicemail, you can send us a voice note about things you were smug about when you were a NICU parent.

Margaret: Please talk to us like we’re your besties. I would absolutely love nothing more than a voice note from people telling me. Happyfamilyafter.com Yeah, fantastic. The pacifiers in NICU are also aces. Just fantastic. The green ones, the purple ones. Woo. Love them. The best passes in the entire world. 

Speaking of being in the community with people and finding other people who are also NICU parents, that togetherness is so fantastic. And you can find a lot of that online. Finding back in the day, it was message bullets. Can you believe it? Now it’s what, Discord groups? I don’t really understand.

Devon: Honestly, it’s chaos out there. We’re not doing Facebook groups anymore. Reddit, maybe? I hope something emerges from the ashes because I loved a message board. I loved a message board. And then I loved a Facebook group.

Margaret: Oh, we did.

Devon: That’s how we met. Reddit, I find a little overwhelming.

Margaret: I’ve never been able to Reddit.

Devon: Yeah, I think if I got into it, I would never do anything else.

Margaret: Okay, that’s fair. Sure, You like a lot of weird shit and they have a lot of that on there. You’re the reason that my algorithm is so weird on Instagram to see random weird stuff because you love it.

Devon: I love that. So, yeah, finding the camaraderie online,

Margaret: Finding the camaraderie and then deciding, okay, we’re out of the NICU, we’re at home. This is after discharge, right? We’re out of the NICU, we’re home. We’re not weighing the baby constantly anymore. We’re not marking down every…

Devon: Well, because here’s the thing, the NICU is the best place for them to be if they are sick or need support. And if they are sending you home, it’s because you are okay. They will not send you home if your baby is having massive issues that you can’t handle. We’ve had kids come home from NICU or just whatever that have apnea monitors or different things going on that they’re home.

Margaret: Oh, yeah. G-tubes, all kinds of stuff.

Devon: The parents ask us like, “Oh, are you guys able to do this? Are you guys able to work with this?” I’m like, even if we haven’t seen it before, if it is something that they are trusting you to do, we can do it. Like you are parents, you are brand new to this. Chances are you’ve never even held a baby before. If you can handle an apnea monitor, so can we.

If it’s like a major medical thing where you need a nurse to do it because that’s what they’re trained for, then no, we’re not doing that. But if they’re trusting some dummies who had a baby last week to do this, then we can do this too. And the parents get that. They’re like, “Yeah, you’re right. We have no idea what the fuck we’re doing.”

Margaret: Yeah, for sure. And I, when I worked as a postpartum doula, one of my very favorite longterm clients came home on a G-tube. And that is how we found each other was me speaking about NICU and my experiences. That’s how they found me online. And I was with them for months and months. And I absolutely loved them. And we did feeds in the G-Tube until he graduated out of that.

Devon: They come off the monitor.

Margaret: And then they’re absolutely enormous. My child is not even on a growth curve right now. He’s just straight up like an arrow. He’s going to be taller than me and his father and his brother.

Devon: So letting go of being obsessed with every little detail. Because the silver lining is that you get every single little detail, but then I think you need to step away from that. And honestly, people, even non-ICU parents, like I’m going to do a whole episode about monitoring. It’s great that we have phones. It’s great that they have baby apps. 

I have some mixed bags that they have baby apps. I have some feelings about them. Absolutely. But you don’t need to weigh your baby every day once you’re out of the hospital. You don’t need to write down every single wet diaper when they’re six months old.

Margaret: And holding on to that really genuinely is taking up space that other things could be filling in there. Because let me tell you, it becomes finite in there after given birth, the brain space, whoo, it becomes very finite. And you do, you adapt very quickly in the NICU, you learn this kind of lingo and you’re a de facto nurse’s assistant and you’re talking about all of these things. And that’s really cool for that time.

And I just want to encourage that as soon as you are ready for that to not be ever present in your mind, because you don’t need that language anymore right now. And you don’t need to be reading every single post on the NICU Facebook group, because that’s not your reality anymore. It can be hard to hear and harder to do especially, but you wanna graduate in all ways from the NICU.

Devon: No, it’s true. It’s true. And one of the things I love and why NICU babies tend to sleep really well is that they put them on their tummies, they put them on their sides, they don’t follow the sleep safety guidelines because they are on all these monitors. They have eyes on them 24/7, eyes, ears. They’re paying attention to every little detail.

So God forbid there was some kind of issue, they would be able to address it instantly. And you don’t have that at home and that is okay. That is okay. My mom said that she and my dad when I was a baby used to be like, how are we going to someday call her husband in the middle of the night to just let us know that she’s still breathing? Is that going to be weird if we do that? And we’re probably going to do it anyway.

Margaret: Maybe just have a key.

Devon: Just yeah, you know, that’s fine. Yeah, just come in and just put your ear. Okay, good. She’s going. To do a little check. 

Margaret: But the crazy cool thing is that oh my kid’s sick, fine. My head almost died in my arms. It was absolutely horrific. It was terrible. After that, oh, he’s got the flu. We’ll figure it out. You almost die about it. No, I’m great. Yeah. 

Devon: Oh, you fell off your bike and ripped your knee open and you’re bleeding. Okay.

Margaret: Could not possibly care less. And it’s incredible. I know I joked about it about he gave me a good birth because the after part of it was so horrible, but I have continued to catch a break.

Devon: It’s such an interesting perspective. Once you’ve been through that, you’re in good shape.

Margaret: Your ability to triage, which is what that means, is to prioritize and to evaluate what is emergent, what is urgent, and what is just necessary. I am very grateful for that.

Devon: I love that. I love that. And sometimes they come out, Tthey still have issues and you’re still monitoring them and managing them because they have some kind of ongoing situation. And that’s obviously a different story, but you’ve learned so much and you’ve gotten so much from the NICU and the nurses there and the staff there and everything. We’re talking these people’s ears off, but let’s wrap it up with any final words that you want to add.

Margaret: Yes, not to be self-serving, but I do work with people who are still stuck in the NICU and still having a hard time not having racing heartbeat when they are hearing certain sounds, being able to sleep through the night, et cetera. And we’re talking about two plus years after the event.

Devon: And even just, I think something that I’m going to call you out a little bit because I think this is relatable, the emotional trauma, like you couldn’t even talk about it until recently. You know, I pitched the idea of silver linings of the NICU as an article or a social media video like five years ago and you were like, nope, can’t do it. There’s nothing good about it. It’s all terrible. And you’ve done the work to come around. And I think you would love to help people come around a little faster.

Margaret: That’s exactly what I want. I do not want people stuck there for as long as I was stuck there by a long shot because it’s not pleasant. Hamish, he’s my only child. I don’t have other experiences to dilute it.

Devon: Just spitballing here, but I think there may be some situations where if you wanted a subsequent child, the NICU experience might be holding you back from doing that or taking that leap. So getting support, getting help to move past it.

Margaret: Yeah. Doing hypnosis, coaching and hypnosis and pairing the two together, I’ve just observed it to be really effective very quickly. Like four weeks in a row, people are feeling completely different about lots of different aspects of their life. And I think that’s pretty cool. I like quick change. I like quick results.

Devon: Yeah. And it seems like it’s crazy, but for something that’s so visceral, that affects your physical body in so many ways, it is traumatic. It is.

Margaret: Yeah. And it’s affecting decisions that you’re making that you would never associate with body trauma from NICU. Like you’re in your corporate job trying to make decisions and you feel like you can’t. And there’s part of that’s from that NICU drama. You wouldn’t relate that. But the cool thing about hypnosis is that you don’t have to get into the story. You can just bypass that. So it’s very cool. I really appreciate that aspect of it.

Devon: And so that’s something that you support with. Certainly people can talk to their therapist. That is huge as well. You have to take care of yourself along with your baby. And if there’s nothing else that this podcast ever teaches you, it is that you have to take care of yourself along with your baby. And it seems very trite, but a lot of people are not doing it. So I’m going to keep saying it until everybody’s doing it.

Margaret: It feels like we wouldn’t have to say it and yet here we are saying it.

Devon: And you have to let other people help you with that, whether it’s a coach like Margaret or just your family members. We didn’t really talk about what’s going on at home while you’re with your baby in the NICU, let other people do things for you. Let them support you. 

And I think much like when people have twins and forced to accept help, they’re forced to put them on a schedule. When you’re spending your days in the hospital with your baby, you are forced to let someone else do your dishes and your laundry and clean your house and run your errands and help out with your older kids and do all of those things.

Because when you are home, when you are away from your baby, you should be sleeping, You should be spending time with your other children and that’s it. And doing things that are restorative for you. Read a book. Don’t go home and do the laundry. Don’t go home and do the dishes.

Margaret: My mother-in-law and I, we had a brief but contentious relationship, but one area that she shone like a diamond was she was there the night that we had to take Hamish to the hospital and she stayed for like, I want to say a full week, but it might’ve been a few days, but she – listen, she did laundry. She cast stocked the pantry. She did every single thing that she possibly could and showed up in that way. And it was so fantastic. She really nailed that. I’ll always be grateful to her for that.

Devon: That’s awesome. And if you have a friend or a family member who has a baby in the NICU, go do that for them. Don’t even ask. Just be like, I’m coming over to do laundry. Where’s the spare key? What’s the code to the house? I’m doing it. Or I’ll come pick it up and do it at my house and bring it over to you.

Margaret: I did that for somebody whose child was in the NICU before I even had a kid. That was my introduction to the club before I was a member.

Devon: So just having that support is so tremendous. Margaret, thank you so much, as always, for being here. We love having you on. I actually got a report recently from the producers that the episodes we do together are very popular. I love that. And I just love talking to you and forcing you to talk to me. Much like I bought a house down the shore so that I could force my friends to come visit and put on shows for me. I started a podcast so that I can talk to cool people all the time. So tell us where they can find you.

Margaret: Yes, I would love for you to find me on Instagram @margaretmasontate, just like the name, like the human adult name. And you can also find me at margaretmasontate.com. I’ve got some awesome goodies online. And that is also how you can book a coaching call with me. Should you feel interested in getting coached pre birth or postpartum, I happen to have a specialty in the both.

Devon: I love that. I love that. I think it’s so important. And postpartum could mean five years, ten years later.

Margaret: I am 11, almost 11 years postpartum and I feel still there. So yeah.

Devon: Yeah. And especially I think in those first couple of years, it’s just so intense. Like we expect everyone to be back to quote unquote “normal” six weeks in, two weeks in, and it’s just not. 

Margaret: It was very vindicating to see a headline recently that said, women are fucked up until about three years after their last baby. And I was like, see, see? 

Devon: Yes, correct. Yes. Oh my God.

Margaret: If you feel weird, yes, same. And I can help.

Devon: Yeah. And I talked about this on one of the early episodes of reasons you might not choose to breastfeed. A friend of mine had her daughter, breastfeeding was great, loved it, weaned at six months and I felt like an entirely new person. I felt like myself again. I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t been feeling like myself for those six months, but now I was back and I was like, holy crap. So then when she had her next one, she chose not to breastfeed because even though it seemed to be going great, realized after the fact that it was not.

Margaret: If there’s that much of a difference, I think that’s a rocking choice.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. You can make those choices for yourself based on how things are. And during the time I didn’t even realize anything was wrong and then I was like, oh crap, who was that?  Anyway, as always, lovely to have you, lovely to have everyone listening. We love you so much.

Have a great day and we will see you next week.

To be sure you never miss an episode, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast app. We’d also love to connect with you on social media. You can find us on Instagram @happyfamilyafter, or at our website HappyFamilyAfter.com. On our website, you can also leave us a voicemail with any questions or thoughts you might have, and you can roast your baby. Talk to you soon. 

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Parenthood Prep. If you want to learn more about the services Devon offers, as well as access her free monthly newborn care webinars, head on over to www.HappyFamilyAfter.com.