For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last - NYTimes.com Source: www.nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/health/25trau.html?_r=1

This article is good (even tho it focuses on premeies alot). Many heart parents believe they had something resembling PTSD. We even talked to the hospital about offering couseling- i had flashbacks & still do. Not just in the NICU but in the afte...r surgery recovery ICU, and even on the recovery floor when they still have to constantly take blood, tests, etc. This article is like a look into 'our' world- those of you who have never had a child in the hospital should read!

“The NICU was very much like a war zone, with the alarms, the noises, and death and sickness,” Ms. Roscoe said. “You don’t know who’s going to die and who will go home healthy.”

The second trauma is seeing their own infant having
traumatic medical procedures and life-threatening events, and also witnessing other infants going through similar experiences,” said the author of the Stanford study, Dr. Richard J. Shaw, an associate professor of child psychiatry at Stanford and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

“And third, they often are given serial bad news,” he continued. “The bad news keeps coming. It’s different from a car accident or an assault or rape, where you get a single trauma and it’s over and you have to deal with it. [ With a preemie], every time you see your baby the experience comes up again.”

Would you really want to know? (new poem)

Many people look at me and think they know how I feel,
but I have perfected the art of being seemingly made of steel.
As if I would wear my worry, fears, and anxiety over your future for the world to see-
that even with faith- the statistics, the hard facts are going thru my mind as I bounce you on my knee.
But I don't talk about 'it' a lot, what would people say-
since already they assume that everything is 'fine' because you 'look' okay?
Would they really want to know just how it still sometimes feels new
to see you again, in a hospital bed, crying, being poked or worked on by a crew?
Would they really want to know I feel our life with you is on borrowed time,
like being sentenced without having done any crime.
Would they really want to know that the 'sentence' I speak of is experiencing a beautiful gift
to love, hold, watch grow and explore and at any moment can be taken just as swift.
Would they really want to know how it looked, your first open heart cut-
well I could easily tell them, I see it perfectly when my eyes shut.
Would they really want to know that in my sleep,
I can clearly recall the fear and worry every time your monitors would beep?
Would they really want to know how I still have bouts of insecurity & crying,
that no matter how you 'look' is still the real & legitimate fear of you dying?
What they should know is your story, the good & bad -
And that your broken heart will always be mine-
I promise to make every second count and make the most of all our time....