She wrote:
"On the day I gave birth, my husband was in state of shock and sadness," said Mukami.
“As I stated before my babies were born on 19th Jan 2017 at roughly 10am, this was on a Thursday. I woke up a few hours later to find a lot of happiness in the room from my mum, my sister, my mother in law and a few friends.
“My husband seemed to be in a state of shock and a bit of sadness. I just thought it was the shock of the whole incident but I would later discover the reason of his sadness was because he had seen the children as they were being rushed to NICU.
“I was not able to see my babies until later in the evening as I was transferred to the main maternity ward which was next to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I was helped out of my bed at around 8pm. The Cs wound was super painful, I never imagined such pain existed.
“So we walked slowly into the NICU. It had a sign board written “staff only”, parents to the babies were the only ones allowed inside apart from staff so my husband led the way.
“Let me start by saying that the NICU is the worst place for any child to begin their life. I salute the staff who work there because it’s not a pretty sight. For the longest time I have blocked the memories of this first night because it was horrible.
“Seeing your child/children for the first time should be a joyous occasion but for me it was one night that I hope to forget. Every time I look back at this night I feel so helpless and disappointed and I can’t help but break down in tears.
“I never want to go through this again. It was a feeling of shock, disbelief coupled by feelings of failure, failure as a mother. I had failed my children, my body had failed me, so many questions ran through my mind when I remember this night.
“We began with triplet number one (Mwaura Jr) who was at the furthest corner of the first room, then triplet 2 (Njiru) and 3 (Njeri) who were together on neighboring incubators. Small is an understatement , my babies were tiny ,a bit wrinkled and covered in cotton wool wrapped in polythene bags to keep them extra warm .
“They were all intubated and on life support. I was sure this were not my children, they were white with a lot of black hair. They did not look like babies. I immediately felt like running away. Why was I here? These are not my children.
“I asked my husband if he was sure they did not confuse them with somebody else’s children. These are not my children…. by now tears were flowing freely …one of the NICU nurses who was on duty that night came and held our hands to comfort us.
“She told us that the one single thing our babies needed was our strength. They needed to know that we believe they will be better .We asked her if they will be better .She told us that the doctors and nurses will do the best but God does the healing.
"My head was spinning at this point. These are not my babies, at some point I really wanted to wake up from this bad dream. I looked around and I noticed for the first time other children in the room, some were small while others were bigger than my babies but they all seemed to be fighting.
“NICU is an awful place but it’s also a place where you learn a lot, NICU is a room filled with the smallest fighters. There is a lot of defeat and winning. For the 11 weeks my babies stayed in the NICU, I watched the tiniest people fight harder than I have ever seen.
“They fought to breath and to live, it was a fight against death. Some won the fight while others lost the fight but we still celebrate them because in the short or long time they lived, they left a great impact in our lives.
“I will be sharing about my NICU journey. A journey of strength and courage but not from me, strength from the tiny little miracles that gave us a reason to live,
“My NICU journey gave me a new outlook in life.
“My NICU journey gave me purpose.
“My NICU journey gave me wonderful friends.
“My NICU journey has given me the courage to speak out.
“My NICU journey taught me how to be still.
“My NICU journey renewed my relationship with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment