57. Shooting Star

Today’s okay thing comes from Nikki in Montana, who shares a story of finding hope when her babies were in the NICU.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora:  I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay.

[Voicemail sound]

 Nikki: Hey, this is Nikki, from Marion, Montana.

When I was expecting my twins in 2020, my water broke at only 25 weeks along. It was an ordinary day in the middle of an ordinary week, and all I did was sneeze. For those who might not know that is really, really, really early. My precious, identical twin daughters arrive by emergency C-section after 10 days of bedrest and weigh only two pounds each.

They were rushed to the NICU where they were hooked up to every machine imaginable, and we could only watch and wait and see how things would go. They warned me that the NICU journey is a rollercoaster, but I’ve heard some people actually enjoy roller coasters. There was nothing that could have prepared me for the ups and downs we experienced.

Six weeks later, it was almost Christmas. And the girls were still on life support. We were starting to wonder if they would even survive. December 24th was exceptionally stressful. We spent the whole day standing by baby bees, isol at watching the numbers on the monitors go down when they should be going up, and she seemed to be struggling even more than usual.

I felt like I couldn’t hardly even watch her suffering like that. My husband decided that he would spend the night in her room. And maybe I could go home and stuff. The stockings for my older kids, trying to pretend that any of this was somewhat normal. The neonatologist also slept at the hospital that night in case our baby needed a middle of the night intervention.

And I knew that that was not good news. It felt like I was just rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The ship was sinking and. I was gonna go home and wipe the crumbs off the counters, but I needed the rest and the other kids deserve their Christmas. I drove home from the hospital with tears on my face and a lump in my throat.

They say a mother is only as happy as her least happy child, and baby B was not very happy right then. Just as I pulled onto my street, the hugest, brightest shooting star I have ever seen, streaked across the big Montana sky. I can be kind of a superstitious person, and I know what shooting stars meant. I had a sinking feeling about my baby, and I called my husband right away.

He reported that she was actually sleeping peacefully for the first time that day. She wasn’t fighting the machines that were keeping her alive. In fact, He was about to tuck himself into the sweaty recliner for the night. He said he loved me and he hoped that I tried to get some rest too. Right then and there, I decided that I had to believe that things would be okay even if things ended in the worst way possible.

I had to believe that I could survive it. My worries and anxieties were not helping the girls at all. They made every day miserable. We still had a rough couple of years getting the twinsies on the path to health. Baby B was still in the hospital when she was eight months old. We met so many incredible doctors and nurses and volunteers who have all devoted their entire lives to helping sick kids.

I learned how to be a truly patient person about the whole process. She just needed a little more time, time to grow and build more lung tissue. I became a special needs mom and I hauled home oxygen tanks and feeding pumps, and then I returned them when she didn’t need them anymore. I learned how to stand up for her and ask for things she couldn’t ask for herself.

Now the girls are two years old. They’re climbing my curtains and learning their ABCs and beating all the odds. Every now and then I see a shooting star in a children’s book that I’m reading them or on a kid’s t-shirt at Target. And now to me it’s just a little wink and a nod that we might not know what’s ahead and we might not know how we’ll get through it, but everything will be okay in the end if it’s not okay.

It’s not the end.