Each week, I dated a sticky note with my name on a jar of almond butter per the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) family room policy. March was approaching. How long would this routine have to last?
Our New Year’s baby had undergone lifesaving surgery to resect his perforated small intestine when he was a week old, and ever since then, the days blended into weeks as we waited for his weight to reach 3.0 kg to qualify for reanastomosis. Each night, when waking up at midnight to pump breast milk, I hastily logged in to the patient portal to check the direction of his latest weigh-in, which was backward just as often as forward. The days were monotonous, yet somehow each was still uniquely challenging. Finally, he was transferred to the postoperative floor with a shiny new gastric tube and fully connected bowels, but then a new waiting game began: his feeding regimen needed to be optimized, and that could take weeks, or more. We tried bargaining with the medical team about how much ins-and-outs fluid monitoring we could do at home, and each delay from the latest arbitrary discharge date felt like a defeat. Deep down, I made a promise to do better when the roles were reversed, and I was the clinician.