Okay, so this is the last one. Maybe.
I get asked all the time at work by the patient families as well as by my co-workers who are not mothers “isn’t it hard to be pregnant and work in a NICU? You must worry all the time.” Yes, as a matter of fact I do, thanks for asking. Although at this point I am so pregnant (37 weeks as of today!) that most of my fears have not come to pass and little BJ seems to be quite healthy.
So instead of fear this last stretch of pregnancy has been marked by…guilt. I can feel the eyes of parents evaluating my protruding belly and can almost hear their thoughts: I bet that her baby is okay, I bet that she is a lot farther along than I could ever carry a baby, I bet that her baby doesn’t have any defects like mine does. I see the parents just sort of staring at my belly sometimes. One of the mothers cried when she looked at me. I never know quite how to respond to it all. Mostly I just don’t bring up my pregnancy unless the families say something about it.
One of the most endearing things about little BJ at work, though (to end on a positive note) is that he seems to feel sympathy for his tiny peers. When I have a particularly sick baby who is getting sicker by the moment BJ will start kicking around and pushing against my abdomen. I sort of imagine her trying to help the baby or to encourage me to do something. The most likely explanation for this behavior is that BJ gets some of my adrenaline as I care for a really sick baby and spend the day trying to prevent the patient from dying. But it is nicer to think that BJ is trying to help out.