The Perks of Special Care

While it's absolutely horrible having a baby in the Special Care Nursery, I've come to acknowledge that, if you look hard enough, there are actually a few perks.

Perk 1

You get to watch your baby grow throughout the third trimester. It's like having x-ray vision into the womb. You can see exactly what they look like at each week of gestation. And all those karate kicks to the ribs you imagined them performing, you get to see them in action!

Perk 2

You have midwives and lactation consultants at your beck and call to help with all things milk. From expressing to blocked ducts to actually learning to breastfeed, there is someone there to coach you every step of the way. For us, it's like a 9 week training course.

Perk 3

In theory, baby will go home in a wonderful routine. Unlike a baby that's just popped out at full term, these babies reach full term with a good 9 weeks of training under their belt. They have learned to feed, sleep, repeat on a three hour cycle. In theory.

Perk 4

You know your baby, their cues and their likes and dislikes pretty well by the time they reach full term. We quiz the midwives every time Frankie does something new and have found out what things mean. We know that her putting her hands in her mouth means she's hungry, that she adores being swaddled and loves to sleep with her arms up around her head.

You might need to squint really hard to see past the monitors, alarms and a bunch of other scary events, but on some days these perks reveal themselves. Those are good days.