What 25 Days in the NICU Taught Us About Faith, Control & God's Provision
If you've been around here for a while, you know that Isaac's birth story isn't a neat and tidy one. He arrived seven weeks early, and the road that followed — through the NICU, the feeding battles, the emotional exhaustion of leaving him each day — was one of the hardest and holiest seasons of our lives. In this episode, my husband Brian joins me for the very first time to share what those 25 days in the NICU were really like from both sides. I know this one is going to encourage your heart, mama.
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Before You Keep Reading — Did You Catch Part One?
This episode is Part 2 of Isaac's birth story. If you haven't listened to Part 1 (Episode 45) yet, I'd love for you to start there — it gives so much context for everything we're sharing here. Head back when you're ready and then come back for this one!
When Your Birth Story Doesn't Go the Way You Planned
I never planned to have a baby in the NICU. I never planned to leave the hospital without my son in my arms. And I definitely never planned to learn what "oxygen saturation monitoring" meant firsthand.
But that's exactly where we found ourselves in the early hours after Isaac was born at 33 weeks.
Brian and I had prepared so much for this birth. We had faith. We had a birth team. We had prayed and trusted and surrendered. And yet — nothing fully prepares you for the moment a NICU nurse walks up, takes your newborn baby, and says, "He's got to come with me."
That 60 seconds — from the moment Isaac was born to the moment he was wheeled away — changed something in both of us. And the 25 days that followed taught us more about faith, surrender, and the character of God than just about anything else ever has.
A Dad's Perspective: The Moment Isaac Was Born
This is the first time Brian came on the podcast, so I want to start right where he does — with the moment our son entered the world.
When Isaac came out, Brian said, the first thing he felt was sheer relief. Isaac came out crying, waving his little arms, making his presence known. For a dad who had no real framework for what premature birth looked like, hearing that cry was everything.
But that relief was short-lived.
Within what felt like seconds, the NICU team stepped in and said it was time to take Isaac. Brian describes that shift — from relief to anger to grief — as happening almost instantaneously.
"I had not even gotten to physically touch him at all yet."
He talks about waves of anguish washing over him in those first minutes. The anger that he couldn't hold his son. The grief that this looked nothing like Ellie's birth or Daniel's. The helplessness of watching your child be wheeled away and being unable to do a single thing about it.
If you're a dad reading this, or if your husband walked through something similar — I hope this episode gives language to some of those feelings. Because Brian's experience mattered, and your partner's experience matters too.
My First Moments in the NICU
Because I was still in the delivery room recovering, it was Brian who got to see Isaac in the NICU first. One of our labor and delivery nurses — one I'd known through previous births I'd been a part of as a doula — snuck back to get a photo on his phone and bring it to me. That tiny photo on a screen was the only image I had of my son for almost two hours.
When I finally got to see him in person, it was three or four hours postpartum. And the Scripture the Lord kept bringing to my mind as I walked into that room was something our pastor says often:
"Where the ideal is unrealized, grace abounds."
I looked it up later: 2 Corinthians 12:9.
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
That verse perfectly captured what I was standing in the middle of. I was beholding our son's weakness. I was beholding my own weakness — my total inability to control what was happening. And yet — there was this blanket of peace that I can only describe as supernatural. The Lord had Isaac. He had me. He had all of it.
His grace truly was sufficient. Even there.
The Daily Rhythm: Ships Passing in the Night
One of the hardest parts of the NICU season that doesn't always get talked about is what it does to your family rhythms — and to your marriage.
We had two other children at home. Ellie and Daniel still needed to be fed and bathed and loved and taken to school. And at the same time, I desperately wanted to be with Isaac every possible moment.
For those first four or five days, Brian and I would go to the NICU together while family watched the kids. But that was hard to sustain. By weeks two and three, we had settled into a rhythm that kept life running — but it wasn't pretty.
I would get up, eat breakfast, and head to the NICU until midday. Brian would handle the morning with Ellie and Daniel. Then we would quite literally tag in, tag out in the driveway — I'd come home, he'd head to the NICU — and we'd barely see each other for days at a time.
We were stretched emotionally, physically, and relationally in ways neither of us had experienced before. If you've been through a NICU stay and felt that strain in your marriage — I want you to know: you're not alone, and that strain doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It means you were doing the hard and holy work of caring for everyone at once, with nothing left over.
Leaving Him Every Day: The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done
I was not sleeping. Even when I had the opportunity, my nervous system was too wired to rest. I was waking every few hours through the night to pump — because even though Isaac wasn't home, I was determined to keep my milk supply up for whenever he was ready.
And every single time I had to leave the NICU, it felt like leaving a piece of my heart behind.
I remember asking friends and family to specifically pray for us in this — not just for Isaac's healing, but for me to be able to leave him at the end of each visit without falling apart. Because something in my body kept screaming that this was wrong. That I was abandoning him. That I should be with him.
And then the Lord gave me the most tender picture.
His name is Isaac. And over and over during those weeks, God kept bringing me back to the story of Abraham — of a father being asked to lay his son, his Isaac, on the altar. To surrender him completely. To trust that the Lord would provide.
I would walk out of the NICU and think: I'm laying him down. I'm laying him at the altar. And I have to trust the Lord with whatever happens while I'm not there.
And then I found Genesis 22:14.
📖 Scripture Highlight
"So Abraham called the name of that place, 'The Lord will provide'; as it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.'" — Genesis 22:14 (ESV)
This was the word the Lord kept giving me throughout the entire pregnancy and NICU stay: I will provide.
Not "figure it out." Not "control the outcome." Not "be strong enough."
Just — I will provide.
And He did. Every single day. Through NICU nurses who became like angels to us. Through a milk supply that held. Through friends who showed up. Through a husband who loved us all so well even while he was breaking too.
The Lord provided for our Isaac, just as He provided for Abraham's.
The Feeding Journey: Where I Had to Surrender the Most
If you know anything about premature babies, you know that feeding is one of the final hurdles before coming home. Isaac started with a feeding tube — he simply didn't have the strength or the coordination to feed orally yet. Every three hours: diaper change, vitals, feeding. And the NICU team tracked every single milliliter he took.
I became almost obsessed with those numbers. Every mL he took became a measurement of that day's success. Every disinterested feeding felt like defeat. I was so desperately trying to find something — anything — I could control in this situation, and the mL tracker became my fixation.
The Lord was gentle with me in it, but He was also clear: Lay this down too. You cannot control this.
I had never exclusively pumped before. I had never done paced bottle feeding before. I had a lactation consultant at the hospital, a lactation consultant visiting my house, and still — I felt like a first-time mom again. The first half of our kitchen counter was taken over by pumping parts and bottle sanitizing equipment. It was relentless.
But when Isaac finally came home and, by the grace of God and many patient lactation consultants, transitioned to exclusively breastfeeding — the day I packed up that bottle washer and moved it to the laundry room might have been one of the best days of my postpartum life.
A Sweet Moment in the Middle of It All: Praying Over Him Head to Toe
Somewhere in those 25 days, Brian found his thing. The one act of care he could offer Isaac that no machine could replicate, and that no feeding tube or oxygen monitor could replace.
When it was his turn at the NICU and Isaac wasn't taking a bottle, Brian would just hold him on his chest and pray. Out loud or quietly — slowly, from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet.
He prayed for Isaac's mind — that it would grow and know God. For his eyes — that they would see goodness. For his nose — that one day it would smell flowers. For his mouth — that it would taste good food and laugh loudly. For his ears — that they would hear the joyful chaos of his brother and sister playing in the house.
Every single part of him. Every tiny, fragile, miraculous part.
And in doing that, Brian said he was reminded that this is how God thinks about us — that He designed every detail, that every inch of the way we are made reflects His creativity and His care, that we only function every day because of the goodness of His design.
It was his most sacred NICU ritual. And honestly? It's one of my favorite things he's ever told me about those days.
The Angel Eye App: Beautiful and Gut-Wrenching
One thing the hospital gave us was access to the Angel Eye app — a live video feed of Isaac in his bassinet that we could check from our phones. When he was sleeping, it was a gift. I could peek in, see the rise and fall of his little chest, and let out a breath.
But when he was awake and his eyes were open and he was looking around, quietly alert, and I was at home watching on my phone — that was the hardest thing.
He should have been seeing my face. I should have been holding him.
Brian says it so well: we were looking at our son through a screen instead of holding him in our arms, and that was a particular kind of grief all its own.
Ellie and Daniel: Meeting Their Brother Through a Window
Because of NICU protocols, Ellie and Daniel couldn't come inside to meet Isaac. So on weekends, when my parents were there to help, we'd bring the kids to the NICU window. They would press their little faces to the glass and wave at their baby brother.
It was sweet. And it was so, so strange — especially for Ellie, who had met Daniel in our arms within minutes of his birth. This was a completely different introduction.
But I prayed so hard for Daniel specifically during those weeks. He's a mama's boy, so attached to me, and I was terrified of what Isaac's arrival might do to his sense of security. Just about every night at bedtime, I would pray that the Lord would prepare his heart. That he would feel loved, not replaced. That he would welcome his brother.
And from the very first time we showed him photos of Isaac, Daniel would just look at the screen and say, "Hi, Isaac."
I knew then he was going to be a wonderful big brother.
Day 25: Coming Home
There are moments in life you replay over and over because they feel like a mountaintop. The day we brought Isaac home from the NICU is one of those moments for me.
The last few days of his stay, we had been holding our breath. He'd been on a low dose of supplemental oxygen, and the rule was simple: 48 hours without it, consistently finishing full feeds, and he could come home.
Every time we walked in or out, every time we called the NICU at 5:30 in the morning: "How was the night?" And the nurse would say, "Uneventful. He did great."
Uneventful has never sounded so beautiful.
On day 25, we walked in and the team said: "Okay. He's good to go. Let's get the paperwork started."
He looked impossibly tiny in his car seat, but we were finally bringing our little miracle baby home.
Ellie and Daniel were waiting at home. The moment we walked in with Isaac, Daniel — our big two-year-old who had been our baby right up until this moment — was immediately trying to hold his brother. He gave him a kiss right on the mouth (a gentle redirect to the forehead was needed, for the sake of newborn immune systems), and his eyes lit up with pure love.
Brian said it best: "We got to be whole."
I had prayed for that every single day since Isaac was born. And that day, we were finally whole.
Where We Are Now: God's Faithfulness on Full Display
At the time we recorded this episode, Isaac was just shy of four months old. He is exceeding his growth curve. He is meeting every milestone for his adjusted age. He slept through the night for the very first time the night before we recorded — yes, we announced it immediately on the podcast, because praise the Lord.
And by the grace of God, after all those weeks of pumping and paced bottle feeding and lactation consultants and counting milliliters — Isaac is exclusively breastfeeding.
Friends. The Lord provided.
He provided in the NICU. He provided in the feeding journey. He provided for our marriage, for our older kids, for my heart when I had to leave that hospital without my son every single day.
And He never — not once — wasted the hard.
🙏 A Prayer for the Mama Reading This
Lord, I pray for the mama reading these words today — whether she's in a NICU right now, or she's on the other side trying to make sense of a birth story that didn't go as planned, or she's simply carrying fear about what lies ahead.
I pray You would meet her exactly where she is. That You would whisper "I will provide" over every specific thing she's trying to control and can't. That she would feel the weight of Your grace — that it truly is sufficient, even in weakness, especially in weakness.
Remind her that You designed every part of the baby in her arms or in her womb with care and intention. That You are not surprised by her story. That You are not absent in her hardest moments.
May she lay her Isaac at the altar and find You faithful on the mountain.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Check out some of the newborn photos taken by Erin Heuser Photographer LLC
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📄 Full Episode Transcript
If you're joining me for the first time today, I would love to encourage you to go back and listen to part one of Isaac's birth story — that's episode 45 — before you dive into today's episode. It's going to give you so much more context for everything we're going to share. But if you're back and you listened to part one and you're ready for the rest, hi. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here.
Today I have a very special guest with me. This is Brian, my husband, who's going to be joining me for this episode, and I could not be more excited about him coming on to share, because this is his story as well. He was there for all of it, and I think it's so important for you to hear his perspective alongside mine.
So Brian, happy to have you here.
Hi, longtime listener, first-time guest. Big fan of your work.
I would hope so. But anyway, in this episode we're going to be talking about everything that happened after Isaac was born — his stay in the NICU, the feeding journey, and what God was teaching us in all of that. So here we are, almost four months postpartum. I thought we would go back and start with — what was your reaction just after he was born?
Lots and lots of emotions. Right after he was born, I was just grateful to hear him come out crying. That was such a relieving thing. I'm not too familiar with premature birth situations, so I really just did not know what to expect with him coming seven weeks early. But he came out and he was waving his arms and belting his little lungs out, and that was just so relieving. The wave of emotion that came from seeing him born, seeing you complete the labor and delivery, and so many of our family and friends that were in the room with us and the doctors — just being grateful for all of that.
Yeah. I also shared in the birth episode that your emotions were on display the moment he was taken away to the NICU. Erin, our birth photographer, got some really beautiful shots — but also just heartbreaking shots of you wrestling through that moment of him being taken away. I shared how for me it was different because I was coming off of a high of just giving birth, but for you it felt pretty unnatural — I think that's what you told me at one point. "Okay, now our son is being taken away." That was a really weird feeling because it was obviously not what we experienced with Ellie or Daniel's birth.
Yeah. The emotions I was talking about before — right when he was born, he came out and we got to see him, but it really felt like about 20 seconds before the NICU personnel were saying they needed to take him away. And that was an instant change from relief that he was born to — I mean, anger. I was angry and scared and beside myself that I could not just hold my son. I couldn't have you hold him and do the skin-to-skin and all the stuff that we were used to with Ellie and with Daniel. And obviously this was a very different situation.
Yeah. I don't know that I've ever had such a visceral reaction to a stranger saying one sentence to me as I did to the NICU person who was holding Isaac saying, "He's got to come with me" — and I had not even gotten to physically touch him at all yet. That was very hard to even understand and put emotion to. I just had waves of that anguish come over me throughout the next few hours after he was born, but especially right there in that first minute or so, because it really was maybe 60 seconds that we had him in the room before he was whisked away.
Yeah. And then you got some time with him in the NICU while I was still just hanging out after giving birth. Will you share what your reaction to seeing him in the NICU was? Erin got some photos of that as well.
Yeah. One of the labor and delivery nurses who was with us through the labor — and I think you had a previous connection with her just by nature of the other births you've been a part of — she was able to, quote unquote, "sneak into the NICU" to get a photo of Isaac on my phone and bring it back to us. That's really the only thing we had for almost two hours before she came back and said I was able to go back and visit while you were still going through the immediate postpartum stuff.
Finally being brought back there — after being on pins and needles every time anybody came into the delivery room, expecting every time the door opened that it was the nurse saying "Come on back," and then it never was — it finally came about two hours or so later. Going into the NICU and seeing this tiny little baby, his four pounds, seven ounces, hooked up to more wires than I cared to count, and a breathing tube, and a feeding tube, and all the beeps — it was all very hard. Unnatural is what it really felt like. Praise God for modern medicine and the calling that medical professionals have to do this kind of work.
For me, it just felt very hard not to be able to just pick him up. He seemed so delicate. I was nervous to even just put my hand on him. When I got into the NICU the personnel were saying, "Don't rub on his head" and to do these soft touches because it's over-stimulating for them, and they're already dealing with so much newness from being born this early — you just need to be very low stimulation.
Yeah, like doing the hand hug and all that. And I remember feeling like we were — visitors.
Yeah. We were visiting a child that we had to be really mindful of how we were interacting with him. It was a very strange feeling.
I remember very distinctly, once I was able to see him — which was once they were moving me over into the postpartum room, so this was maybe three or four hours postpartum — I remember distinctly hearing, "Where the ideal is unrealized, grace abounds." That was something the Lord kept bringing to mind, which is something our pastor says a lot. And I looked up 2 Corinthians 12:9, and it says, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
That verse, I feel like, perfectly summed up that moment for me, because I was just beholding the weakness of our son but also the weakness of my flesh to be able to control what was happening. At the same time, I felt this blanket of peace over all of it. I knew the Lord had Isaac, and I knew the Lord had me and everything about our family in His hands. That was such a gift that I couldn't even fully understand — how the Lord was sustaining me in all that. Truly, His grace was sufficient for me in that.
Anything else you want to share about the NICU in regards to those first moments with him?
I think backing up even a little bit to the labor — it took a while once we were actually admitted into labor and delivery for me to understand and appreciate what was really even happening, and then honestly, being fearful through a lot of that. Constantly being in internal prayer, asking God why this was happening. "I don't understand how this is the plan that you have set for this child, for our family." And He very much met me in that fear, especially immediately postpartum and in that minute or so that we got with Isaac, and the time with our family afterward waiting to be able to go back in. He did not lean away from me when I jumped inward into myself out of fear of not knowing what was going on. He is just good, even in what I would say is probably the hardest thing I have gone through, in those scary moments.
And seeing your faith be amazing in those moments was also such a strange juxtaposition to how I was feeling, because you really were just, from the get-go, "I'm going to trust God. This is what's happening, and He's got it in His hands, and we're just here to be part of His story." That was an amazing thing and a reminder that birth and motherhood and all the things associated with that are this wonderful calling that He's put on your life and on the podcast.
Thanks, baby. Well, I think one of the biggest reasons the Lord was sustaining me the way He was is because I walked through so much the previous year. Thinking back to just the unimaginable darkness and grief I walked through — it really prepared me for this trial that He had me in at that moment. And so looking back on the trials I would have never chosen for myself in 2025, walking through having Isaac, needing all these medical interventions, not knowing how long we were going to be in this season — all the things — that was daunting. But because I could look back on the Lord's faithfulness in previous seasons, I just knew He was going to sustain us for the next one.
So yeah. Let's talk about what our daily rhythm was like having him in the NICU while also having two other littles at home, because that was really one of the hardest aspects of all of this — balancing how we were going to manage to see him every day and also keep ourselves sane and be good parents to Ellie and Daniel. That was such a weird balance we were trying to come up with. Do you want to share more about that, or do you want me to go into my experience?
Do you think we stayed sane in that? Because I don't think we stayed sane in that.
I feel like I did for most of it. There were some days, some moments where I was on the struggle bus, but...
That immediate stretch of postpartum was so strange. He was born Sunday early, early morning, and then we were home that Sunday night — less than a day of him being out in the world. And it felt so wrong to not have our child coming home with us when we were leaving the hospital. We were visitors into the space that he was in for monitoring and care, and then we just had to leave at a certain point. Not that they kicked us out, but yeah — we went home.
Tried to sleep.
Tried to sleep, yeah. The anxiety and the emotional overflow of what was actually going on was really hard for the first week or so — just even understanding the reality that we were in. We have our child, but he's not home with us. What does the house look like when you're trying to recover postpartum? We're trying to understand what being a family of five is going to look like with the kids. All of that was this weird roller coaster that we figured out one day, one piece at a time.
Which in some ways made him being in the NICU easier, I would say, because we weren't immediately bringing home a third child and integrating him into our rhythm right away. In some ways it was nice to have an on-ramp to that situation. But the hardest part was that when we were with him, we had to have childcare lined up for Ellie and Daniel completely. At first you and I were trying to get up there at the same time and be there, all three of us together. But then when it shifted to me being up there in the morning and you going when the kids were down for naps, it started to feel more and more separated. Even how much we interacted together felt like less and less as time went on.
Yeah. The first four or five days, we would get Ellie dropped off at school, get the morning figured out with Daniel, and then either drop them off somewhere or have somebody come watch them here at our house so you and I could go up together and spend time with Isaac. That got to be very hard, because it was every single day trying to figure out — can somebody come over to see the kids so we can go see Isaac in the NICU?
I think the two weeks after that — the second and third weeks — we got into a rhythm of basically you getting up, eating breakfast, heading to the NICU until about lunchtime or so, and me just handling Ellie and Daniel — getting them up in the morning, Ellie to school, hanging out with Daniel. And then you and I would quite literally tag in, tag out, where you would come home around lunchtime and we would just be ships passing in the night for what felt like —
Weeks.
Two weeks or so. Yeah. That obviously got really hard — a whole other level of emotional difficulty for us as husband and wife, on top of also trying to be mom and dad to the two kids at home and the one in the NICU, and trying to juggle all of the things.
I also found that it was getting harder and harder to even just leave him in the NICU. At first, I don't know — I was so tired because I wasn't sleeping. Even though emotionally I felt pretty level, when it would come time for me to actually lay down and sleep, my nervous system was so frazzled that I couldn't. And I was still waking up every few hours to pump even though he wasn't home with me, just to keep my milk supply up. But the lack of sleep was starting to really compound and get to me. The emotional separation that you and I were having because we just had to make it work that way. And then just the more time we got with him and seeing him interact with us more in the NICU, the harder it was to leave him.
I remember asking specifically for people to pray for us in that, because it would make my stomach drop whenever I had to leave him. It just felt like I was abandoning him, even though I know I wasn't. I would have to constantly remind myself, "He's not supposed to be here yet. The NICU is helping sustain his body and grow him outside of me, because he was supposed to still be inside me growing." And so that was a weird mental shift I had to keep reminding myself of, because it just didn't make sense to me that I couldn't just be with him all the time. My body was just saying, "This is so unnatural."
The idea that his name is Isaac — thinking about the story of Abraham and how he had to lay his son Isaac on the altar — it reminded me that every time I left Isaac, I felt like I got that picture. "Okay, I'm leaving him on this bed. I'm leaving him at the altar, and I have to go. And I have to trust the Lord with whatever He's going to do while I'm not here with him."
What's crazy about that is — and I've shared this on the podcast a lot of times — the word that the Lord kept giving me was "I will provide." And so when I was looking this up preparing for this episode, Genesis 22:14, where it talks about Abraham leaving Isaac on the altar, says this: "So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide. As it is said to this day, 'On the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.'" The fact that that's what the Lord kept speaking over me, and that's what that verse was in context to Abraham leaving his son on the altar — I was like, that is mind-blowing. Because that really was what the Lord spoke over me and what I had to remind myself of constantly. As much as I want to be here providing for Isaac, it's going to be the Lord that provides for him. Those NICU nurses were like little angels just taking care of our sweet buddy. But I had to have this level of — I want to control this, I want to be the one that Isaac is holding onto and constantly with — but that's not the way it is. And so I have to just believe that the Lord will provide for him and do all the things for him where I can't.
Yeah. The amount of trust I feel like I had to have in the Lord in that season — I can't do the things for Isaac that I would be able to do if he were home, or if he were full term, and what I could do for Ellie and what I could do for Daniel. The faithfulness and goodness of God to bring Isaac early and to put him in an environment where it was beneficial — the NICU nurses were absolute blessings. Every single one of them just became this smiling, wonderful face when we would walk in and give us little updates. We would call constantly to the NICU and they would answer and say, "Oh, hi, Natalie. Hi, Brian. Isaac's doing great today." Or sometimes updates that weren't great, but those were just the days we had to deal with.
Laying him in the NICU like Abraham laid Isaac before the Lord and just trusted Him — that's a prophetic thing that I did not really think we would be doing with our son.
Isaac's over here in the closet office where I record these podcasts, and he is crying out — "Hey, you guys are talking about me!" So Brian's going to hold him for the rest of the interview. If you hear little sounds, that's our little buddy.
One thing I also wanted to talk about was the Angel Eye app and my love-hate relationship with it. They gave us the ability to have a video monitor on him, except for when they were changing diapers or doing medical things. Having that ability to just pop in on the app and see what he was doing — which most of the time was sleeping — was such a blessing in one way, but also gut-wrenching in the other. I hated seeing him awake. Anytime he was awake and I saw him, my heart broke, because especially if he was looking around, I just wanted to be there. I wanted to be a face he sees and a voice he hears and all that. So that was beautiful and also really difficult to have that ability.
I loved being able to peek in and see him throughout the day. But it also, like you said, made it really hard to have to open up my phone to check on our son.
I will say the word "unnatural" a million different times when it comes to the first few weeks of him being here. The heartbreaking gut feeling of when he was awake and his eyes were just steady open and he was looking around — "Nope, this is the time we're supposed to be holding him. He's supposed to be seeing us."
We're just looking at a screen. That was very difficult.
Well, even in the NICU when we were there — most of the time he was sleeping, but when he was quiet and alert and kind of looking around, that was the most difficult time to leave. I never wanted to leave. And what was crazy was he would actually pick up on the fact that we were there with him and fight sleep just to look at us and interact with us. Which again made it even harder. But it was really precious. Sometimes I could tell he was so tired but he knew I was there, so I would just kind of step out of his line of vision and eventually he would go to sleep — like, "Okay, I guess Mom's not here right this second."
But the great thing was that while he was in the NICU, he was pretty stable, which was such a blessing. For the most part, we were never taking full steps backward once he was improving in certain ways. So like when he got intubated early on, over the next few days he was graduating from needing that respiratory support rather than graduating and then going right back on it. Thankfully we were not doing a whole lot of that.
But one of the ways that I felt like I really needed to trust the Lord was with the feeding aspect of things. He started out with a feeding tube because he obviously was not able to sustain himself with oral feedings like a bottle or breast. And if he did take a bottle or breast, it was very minimal. So for a big part of the NICU stay, it was just waiting for him to have the strength and endurance to feed orally instead of relying on the feeding tube. That was probably a huge part of our NICU stay — just praying that he would continue to grow in that regard, since he wasn't needing all this major medical intervention. It was just the feeding. Anything else you want to share about that?
It was so cool getting to give him some of those bottles. That was a unique way that I was able to spend time with him and feel like I was helping. Even though I probably did not have good form, because the NICU nurses were like, "This is how you do bottles," and it was not at all how I did bottles with either of our other two kids.
Well, it was paced bottle feeding — our other two didn't really take a lot of bottles — and they were born full term and healthy and didn't need all the support with bottle feedings that he did. They were obviously very closely monitoring how much he was taking every single feed. He was on a strict every-three-hour schedule — diaper change, vitals checked, then a feeding. And as he got bigger and bigger, he graduated in how many mLs he was feeding. Just having that tangible evidence of, "Okay, today he took X number of mLs, and then the next day we see what that progress was" — whereas with Ellie and Daniel, we were never measuring it that precisely.
It became like a measuring stick of my success for him for that day, based on how many mLs he was taking by bottle or transferring at the breast or whatever. And it became a little maddening for me because again, my inclination was to want to control, and I wanted to control how much he was able to take every day, even though we literally could not do that. We could just offer it to him and he would take what he would take. I remember feeling really discouraged on the days that he was not super engaged or not showing any interest in feeding. But again, that's where the Lord just kept telling me, "I will provide. Lay him down. Lay this down because you can't control it."
And not having an end date — we had no idea how long he would be in the NICU. I remember when they first told us right after he was born, "Yeah, he could be here for about a month." I was like, "There is no way we're going to be here for a month. This boy's going to get out of here in a couple weeks." That was partially self-preservation, but also just — my mama heart could not imagine him being in there for 25 days. Obviously that's not an eternity, but at the time, with no idea how long he would actually be there, it felt like a never-ending loop of — when are we going to get out of this? I just want him home. I want him in my arms. I want him unattached from all of these wires and all the things. I just wanted him home in a natural state.
But yeah, the feeding journey was such a huge part of this. And then also, because I wanted to breastfeed him, I was getting help from the lactation consultant at the hospital, and I also had a lactation consultant coming to my house even while he was still in the NICU, giving me pointers, because I had also never exclusively pumped before. There was so much I learned during that time with the lactation consultants at the hospital and at home that was just so encouraging, because all of it felt so new to me. I felt like a first-time mom in that regard because so much of that first part of having a newborn is the feeding stuff. But because it was in a completely different context, I felt like a fish out of water. "What am I doing here? I don't even know what's going on half the time."
And pumping was not fun for me. I did not like pumping. It was such a task — so much cleaning of pumping parts and bottles and all the things. That was a really big challenge for me.
It felt like half of the kitchen was dedicated to pumping parts.
Literally half the kitchen.
Washing them, sanitizing them, the drying rack — constantly.
Constantly. Mm-hmm.
One thing, though, that I was so happy to be able to do with Isaac — for Isaac — being in the NICU and not being able to do a whole lot to physically help him progress and develop, was just praying for him. When I got my turn in the day to go be with him, I would go hold him, and any time I wasn't giving him a bottle, I would just have him laying on me and I would pray, trying to just be present in the moment and soak up all the time I could with him. I would literally just pray, either in my head or out loud softly, working my way from head to toe — praying for his mind, that it would develop and know God as he grew; praying for his eyes, that he would see goodness; that his nose would be able to smell flowers; that his mouth would be able to taste the wonderful food that God put on this earth for us and your cooking; that his ears would hear the chaos of his brother and sister playing in the house. Just every single part of him that I could think of, working my way down from head to toe.
It was this very sweet thing to think about how God thinks about us in that way too — that He had to think of every little bit of our bodies when He was designing us, designing Adam and Eve, and that all of those parts work the way they do because He designed them that way, and we only function every day because of the goodness of His design. Praying for all of those things to be well-developed and functioning and good for Isaac was a sweet way to spend that time with him. I think that was a very good and worthwhile thing to be doing when I was able to hold him in the NICU.
I think that was a sweet thing that you and I got to be able to do.
One somewhat bittersweet thing that had to happen because he was in the NICU was that obviously Ellie and Daniel could not meet him in person there. So they would come on the weekends when my parents were there to help, and they would get to see him through the NICU window. That was sweet, but also just — so weird — because Ellie got to hold her brother immediately after he was born at home, like minutes, maybe an hour after, for Daniel. And so to be on the completely opposite spectrum of "Here's your brother who's several weeks old, and you're just able to see him through a window" is really something.
But again, I think there was so much grace in that because it gave Ellie and Daniel this ramp-up period to get acclimated to what was happening now that Isaac was born. And I prayed so hard for Daniel. He's such a mama's boy, so clingy. And pretty much every night when I would put him down for bed and for naps, I would just pray that the Lord would prepare his heart for when Isaac would come home — that he would not feel replaced, he would not feel unloved, that he would just enjoy Isaac being there and all the things.
It was really sweet seeing his interest in Isaac even through a window, because I could already tell that Daniel was going to be such a great big brother.
And Ellie I knew was going to be a great big sister — she has natural mothering instincts. But Daniel I was a little concerned about. Very worried that he was going to be the jealous big brother of "Wait, no, that's my mom. Why are you spending so much time with her?" But even when we were looking through the app and showing him pictures, he would just say, "Hi, Isaac." So cute, just from the get-go.
Yeah. So let's talk about the day he came home, because that was such a mountaintop experience. As long as everything went fine throughout those last few days — because he got put on some low-dose oxygen for the last couple of days, his oxygen saturation was hanging a little lower — they slowly weaned him off of it. As long as he went 48 hours doing well without the oxygen and continued to do full bottle feeds or breast feeds, he was able to come home.
So that morning — this was day 25 — we got there, and my mom and sisters kept telling me, "Just expect it to take some time to get discharged and all that." And I was like, "I'm pretty sure they're going to get us out of there pretty quickly," because having been in the NICU for 25 days, I got to watch several families go home. And sure enough, we got there and they were like, "Okay, he's good to go. Let's start getting his paperwork together." And I was just like, "Oh, what?" It just felt weird then to be like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot believe we are finally taking him home."
They did the car seat test where they put him in the car seat for 90 minutes just to make sure he's stable in that position, and he passed. There was literally nothing left to do besides the paperwork. And then we got to load him up in his little car seat. He looked so tiny in it. What was your experience on that last day?
I thought it was so cool walking in. I think the last five or six days that he was in the NICU, everybody had this anticipation of — "Okay, is this the day he gets this milestone checked off? Is this the day he gets this thing done and we move on to the next final step?" It was so cool in the day or two leading up to it when the nurses and doctors were like, "We're pretty sure he's going to be good to go. He just needs to still be stable through this 48-hour monitoring without oxygen." So we kind of just got to a point of — "Okay, he's good. We just need to make sure he's good for two days, and then he goes home."
And every time we walked in and every time we left — nothing happened. That's a great thing. We'd call at 5:30 in the morning: "Hi, NICU nurse, what's the latest?" And she'd say, "It was uneventful. He did great." And we'd say, "Perfect."
We're coming to get him.
Yep. So that morning — anticipating that we were actually going to be able to bring him home after 25 days of emotional roller coaster, the high highs and low lows and all of the trying times that came with such a long stay.
Yeah. At the time, it was the longest 25 days of my life. But looking back on it now — I think partially it's my brain trying to protect itself — but it feels like a blip. Just like, a blip on the radar.
Not a blimp.
Not a blimp, right.
We got video of Isaac coming home, and Ellie and Daniel were there to welcome him. And the cutest thing about all of it was Daniel's obsession with him. I knew Ellie would be obsessed, but I did not anticipate Daniel's reaction. He kept saying over and over, "I want to hold him. I want to hold Isaac." He gave him a kiss right on the mouth, which I was like — "So cute" — but please kiss him on the head going forward. We're not trying to introduce all these germs to him.
What was your feeling about finally bringing him home and the kids' reaction?
I remember being very surprised at the sweetness with which Daniel greeted Isaac. We had told the kids right from the get-go, "When we get him home, you guys get to see him. You can hold him if he's in the right kind of mood." So we walked in and let Ellie hold Isaac, and two seconds into Ellie holding Isaac, Daniel is just — "Hold Isaac." And he was getting upset about not being the one to hold his little brother.
Daniel is a big two-year-old now. But he was our baby boy until Isaac came around, and then all of a sudden our baby boy — when he was holding our actual tiny baby boy — looked like a giant. It was so bizarre to see him in this whole new light of "Now he's a big brother and a little brother," and he gets to step into that role. Which he has done so well for this whole stretch of time.
But yeah. We got to be whole, which I prayed for every single day from the day Isaac was born until we got him home. And I thank God every day since that we get to be whole and home and together.
Yeah. And Isaac is doing so well. At the time we're recording this, he's almost four months old — less than two weeks shy — and he is gaining weight beautifully, exceeding his growth curve. He just slept through the night for the first time last night, praise the Lord. What a fun milestone to be able to say immediately in the podcast.
I know!
He is meeting all his milestones based on his adjusted age — which, understanding the adjusted age thing for a preemie was a whole learning curve in and of itself. But because of his adjusted age, which goes off of his due date, is how the pediatrician and everyone will be looking at his milestones instead of his actual birthday, until he's about two. And he's meeting all of them based on his adjusted or corrected age.
Another huge blessing is, by the grace of God and many lactation consultants' help, he is exclusively breastfeeding. We're not doing pumping and bottles with him — he's just nursing. And that has been such a victory for all of us. Not only the nutrition aspect, but just even the logistical ease of being able to just breastfeed him instead of pumping and then bottle feeding and then cleaning everything.
Just being able to nurse him, and the closeness that comes from that — I'm so thankful. There were a lot of big milestone victory days, but the day I got to pack up the bottle washer and sanitizer and get it off the counter and move it into the laundry room for storage — that was a huge win.
But yeah. I feel like my biggest takeaway from all of this — and I'll have you share yours too — was just that the Lord will provide. He absolutely provided for us and sustained us in ways I would have never chosen for myself. I would have never chosen for this to be the story the Lord had for me. But this is the story the Lord had for us. And the closeness and the beauty and the trust and the joy in all of that is such a gift from the Lord.
I mentioned in part one how the Lord kept impressing on me to pray for the birth experience and everything to be something where I experienced the Lord's love and His joy, and trust Him more. And I can honestly say, based on where we're at and everything we've walked through these last four months or so, that all of those things came to pass by the grace of God. That's such a blessing in spite of all the hardship that had to be walked through.
Yeah. I think the big thing I take away in reflecting on everything, and in the day-to-day through it all, is that wisdom is the Lord's, and He will give it as a blessing. He will give it through experience. He will give it through the experience of others. Going through Isaac's NICU stay and his birth and talking with so many other dads and friends, hearing about their experiences and not realizing that some of their children also had NICU stays and how their families had to navigate that — I got this wonderful closeness with people I was able to empathize more with and that were able to walk alongside us with what we were going through.
We had three very different birth experiences with our kids — postpartum experiences, labor and delivery, all of it was very unique for each of the three of our kiddos. And being able to now have some of that wisdom through that experience, with God saying, "You're going to be a family that has a lot to share with others, to love on them well" — I'm thankful that He blessed us with these experiences, that He stayed close with us, that He protected and provided and loved us even on the days where it felt like things were spiraling out of control.
And even since Isaac was born, another friend and his family had to do a NICU stay while we were still just on the other side of getting Isaac home. Being able to just be with him a little bit, share what we went through, and just be an ear and a shoulder for him in something that was very new for him and his family — that was a wonderful blessing that God has given us to be able to leverage for the sake of others and for His glory.
We ended up taking some newborn photos here at the house with Erin, our birth photographer and newborn photographer. If you would like to see some of those, the show notes have a link to the full blog post where you can check them out.
I'm so excited that you got to come on and share your side of the story, babe. And yeah, just want to give glory to the Lord for all that He did in and through Isaac's birth story and this postpartum story, and all the ways that He met us and has already allowed us to love on and empathize with other people going through really hard stuff after having a baby. He never wastes our hurts. The Lord never wastes our hurts. And He's such a good God. I'm excited to see what all He does in the rest of Isaac's story.
Anything else you want to share?
No. Just happy to be on the show today. Love you.
I love you.
That's it for today's episode. If this encouraged you, I would love to invite you to sign up for my free Christian Mama Birth Prep Library. It's full of practical tools and faith-rooted resources to help you prepare for a peaceful, Christ-centered birth. You can sign up at faithoverfearbirth.com or with the link in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this podcast episode, I would love it if you would take 30 seconds right now to leave a rating and review. It genuinely means so much to me, and it also helps more mamas find this resource. Until next time, keep choosing faith over fear.
