Life in the NICU - Setting Boundaries with Family and Friends
/Life in the NICU is no walk in the park and that extends to every soul who loves and cares for those little monkeys in their Plexiglas beds. While this is tremendously hard for the parents an important thing to remember is that it is just as hard on the extended family and friends. They are going through the same turmoil but they have to do it at a distance and they have to rely on the parents to give them news, updates, cute baby pictures and in most instances an opportunity to see the little tykes too. Having any number of people love and care for your child is a blessing however, navigating their feelings and how and when you communicate while in the NICU can be overwhelming, challenging and most certainly triggering. In this post I will delve into how we personally managed and also tips and tricks for how to navigate this your way.
In the big wide world of communication now-a-days NICU stays are very similar to most other major events…your friends and families are going to be all in your business right away. They are concerned, they care and they mean well but there are very few things more important to your sanity than setting boundaries firmly and quickly. Here are my top five tips:
Express what you are capable of doing and be honest because you will want to keep this commitment.
Remember that the person on the other end of the phone genuinely cares and wants more than anything to be supportive and there for you.
Ask for help and support. This can be a challenge for some people but asking for help is important and it helps to make your people feel involved and like they are contributing.
Talk to your nurses or other families. They are experts in this as they are doing it or have seen it done so ask for advice on how to explain something or how to make something sound less scary.
In this day and age there is so many different platforms for information and communication. Choose the one that you are most comfortable with. If you are an avid Facebooker - make a page dedicated to your baby and share! If you are a texter - start a group chat or an email chain. If you are a writer - create a blog. If you are an on-air personality - create a YouTube channel. If you are a total introvert designate a person to receive and distribute information. Do what will be easiest for you and your audience.
Here is my story:
From the moment I landed myself in the hospital there was an out pour of love and support which we were so grateful for. I got so many visitors with goodies and calls and texts. I loved every second of it because being bound to a small space in an unknown hospital was lonely and quite frankly boring so the kind faces and sweet messages kept my spirits up. However, once word got out that the babies were born my spot blew up. In our NICU phones are a big no-no. Everyone had to turn them on airplane mode and they get placed in a plastic bag for the duration of your stay at the babies bedside so the moment we walked out of the NICU and turned our phones back on it was like a volcano of “How are the boys?” “Did they have a good day?” “What medications are they taking?” “Did you pump enough milk for them? “How are YOU doing?” “Did you sleep last night?” “Did you get my last message?” “Hello?” “Are you there?” . By day two I was so completely overwhelmed that I looked at Josh with utter desperation and said “What do we do!? I can’t do this!” He of course calmly said, “Let’s manage it, we are allowed to set boundaries.” So we did just that.
We love you all tremendously and cannot express how much your support and love have helped get us through the last several days and we cannot do this alone. We understand that you all want updates and to know how the boys are and to talk to us however, when we are in the NICU our phones cannot be on meaning we cannot send or receive messages. Please understand that we are not ignoring you. Because of our limited availability to communicate we are going to outline some ground rules for us and for you:
We promise to update you via this group text once per day.
We ask that if you have a question about any of our well beings you ask them via this group message, if you want to ask someone else probably does too and it will save us keystrokes in replying.
We don’t know what we need but we promise that if we need anything we will express it.
We thank you in advance. We are both only capable of so much right now and we appreciate your patience.
The next time we left the NICU there was peace. We kept our commitment and sent those updates diligently. There were some days that we almost completely forgot but we were gently reminded :) We also developed a photo stream for everyone to join so that they could see pictures of the babies every day in addition to the status report. This is what worked for us and our loved ones. It helped to keep everyone informed and our sanity stayed mostly in check. This was also a great tool for tracking milestones and for when the days become such a blur that you cant remember what happened.
The most important thing you can do for your loved ones is to keep them informed and the most important thing you can do for yourself is to set your boundaries and your ground rules to keep your overwhelming feelings at bay. Do this as early as possible and reinforce as often as you need and everyone will be better for it. The old adage could not be anymore true here, communication is most certainly the key.