Latest / The Letterbox Podcast / Dear Mama | Letter 7: A Family’s NICU story

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Dear Mama | Letter 7: A Family’s NICU story · The Letterbox Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to the Letterbox Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm Lucy. And this is the place where real
• 0:05
  people share the letters that they've written about the things
• 0:08
  that mean the most to them. This is the 7th and final letter
• 0:15
  in Catherine's Niku story. Over the past week, she has
• 0:19
  written letters to her daughter, her son, her husband, the
• 0:24
  grandparents, the nurses who cared for her baby, other
• 0:27
  parents who are going through a Niku experience, and today,
• 0:31
  finally, to herself. I imagine that one of the things
• 0:37
  about having a seriously ill child is that there's very
• 0:40
  little time to think about what it has done to you.
• 0:44
  There are appointments to go to, questions to ask, children to
• 0:47
  look after medicines, remember, and a family that still needs
• 0:50
  you. You just keep going.
• 0:56
  But in this letter, Catherine asked herself what it actually
• 1:00
  felt like. So here it is, the letter that
• 1:04
  Catherine has written to herself.
• 1:09
  Dear Mama, dear me. I don't know what to say to you.
• 1:15
  Well done, I suppose. You're still here and
• 1:18
  everything's held together. You're keeping very busy.
• 1:23
  And as a psychologist, there's a part of me that knows that's
• 1:27
  convenient. Given the last 18 months,
• 1:31
  perhaps it would make more sense to slow down, to ease off, to
• 1:36
  give yourself some space. But to understand why there was
• 1:42
  a whole new job. To learn a new language,
• 1:45
  medications and doses and appointments.
• 1:48
  Knowing which team was which, what each number meant, what
• 1:51
  questions to ask, what to remember, what to write down.
• 1:56
  And somehow you had to learn all of that while still trying to
• 1:59
  make normal life happen. Nursery runs, meals, birthdays,
• 2:04
  washing, work, everything that doesn't stop just because your
• 2:09
  baby is sick. And you were constantly
• 2:13
  cancelling on people, not because you didn't want to see
• 2:16
  them, because you were in hospital again or there was
• 2:19
  another appointment or something had changed.
• 2:22
  It's a strange kind of lonely doing normal things because you
• 2:25
  have to, while knowing that underneath them nothing is
• 2:29
  normal. I know you wanted a normal life
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  for your new baby and you kept trying to make one.
• 2:38
  I'm proud of you for that, because when I really let myself
• 2:42
  look back at everything we went through, it's strange how little
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  I remember the immediacy of the birth.
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  You were still not even 12 hours out of AC section when you were
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  being told that something was wrong.
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  And somehow you still found the strength to hold your boy, your
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  2 1/2 year old boy, who suddenly seemed tiny amongst all the news
• 3:02
  and sadness and the knowledge that this was supposed to be
• 3:06
  happy and it wasn't. You held him and you made space
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  of him. You let him still be a little
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  boy. And then you did the same for
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  your girl. You took her out, you let her
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  experience being a baby. You didn't wrap her in cotton
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  wool. You allowed there to be joy.
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  It's funny because you were more anxious with your boy, your
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  first, before you had the confidence of second time
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  parenting. I suppose.
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  I'm glad she was second. I'm glad for her and I'm glad
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  for all of us because you and your husband were able to really
• 3:54
  try and relax in between the Tornadoes and the storms, and
• 3:57
  you allowed the clouds to clear a little and you found moments
• 4:00
  of joy. Because it's still their
• 4:02
  childhood and it's still our time with them.
• 4:06
  It doesn't all have to be hospitals.
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  I know there hasn't been much space, Mama, for your heart to
• 4:12
  break or for the pieces to be held together.
• 4:19
  There's been so much to do and so little room to simply feel.
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  I know there's a lot of pain inside you with not much space
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  for it to go. And I know you love your
• 4:32
  children endlessly, that you would sacrifice yourself for
• 4:36
  them without a second thought. And I know how hard it is for
• 4:39
  you to sit and watch them in pain.
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  Your girl, blood draws and wires and tubes.
• 4:45
  Being asked to hold her still so that something can be fitted or
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  done or some procedure finished. Feeling complicit in distressing
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  her even when you are doing exactly what she needs you to
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  do. That's a strange kind of
• 5:01
  motherhood, isn't it? To sometimes be the person who
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  holds your child while somebody else hurts them.
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  To know that you're keeping them safe while every instinct in you
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  is screaming to make it stop. And I'm proud of how you remain
• 5:19
  calm. People comment on it to you and
• 5:25
  to your husband, don't they? My God, you guys are so calm.
• 5:30
  You're so calm all the time. We're not calm.
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  There's a storm raging inside us.
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  Sadness, fear, fright, sometimes absolute terror.
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  But our babies need calm, don't they?
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  So we give it to them. We hold the storm somewhere they
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  don't have to see it. And I'm proud of us for that,
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  for modelling it, for providing that space.
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  People tell you how strong you are.
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  My goodness, you cope so well. You're so resilient.
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  And sometimes I want to say, what the fuck else was I
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  supposed to do? You had a child in hospital, You
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  had a child at home. You had a husband beside you who
• 6:15
  was trying to hold all of it too.
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  They needed you. Your babies needed you.
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  You couldn't rip your own heart out and climb onto the operating
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  table beside her. You couldn't take the pain from
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  her body and put it into yours. You couldn't make the decisions
• 6:32
  disappear. You couldn't make the machines
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  stop. You couldn't make the diagnosis
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  different. So what could you do?
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  You could show up. You could be there.
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  You could hold her hand. You could learn all the words
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  and you could ask the questions. You could hold your boy when he
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  missed you. You could keep some kind of
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  normality going at home. You could be consistent.
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  You could be calm enough for them even when you weren't calm
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  inside. You could keep turning up again
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  and again and again. And maybe that's what people
• 7:19
  were calling resilience, but it didn't feel like resilience.
• 7:24
  It felt like parenting. It was the only parenting you
• 7:27
  could still do. And perhaps that's what I want
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  you to remember, Mama. You weren't strong because you
• 7:33
  didn't break. You weren't strong because you
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  kept showing up whilst you were breaking.
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  You kept loving them whilst you were frightened.
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  You kept making space for their feelings when yours had nowhere
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  to go. You kept being their safe place
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  when you didn't feel particularly safe yourself.
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  And you did the job that was left to you.
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  You were their mum, and you did over and over again.
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  But Mama, I don't want you to mistake being able to contain it
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  for not being affected by it. You don't have to prove that
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  you're OK just because you managed to keep going.
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  You don't have to turn every difficult thing into something
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  useful, and you don't have to understand every feeling before
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  you're allowed to have it. And you don't have to be the
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  psychologist all the time. Sometimes you can just be the
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  mum. The mum whose baby was sick, The
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  mum who was frightened and the mum who was angry and
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  heartbroken and exhausted. The mum who just wanted to take
• 8:42
  it all away and couldn't. And the mum who sometimes
• 8:46
  wondered if she'd done something wrong.
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  And the mum who kept showing up anyway.
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  I think you've done enough. More than enough.
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  You've carried your babies through some things that no
• 9:01
  parent should have to carry, and you've carried yourself too.
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  Perhaps now you can start putting some of it down.
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  Not all at once, just a little. You can let somebody else hold
• 9:15
  some of it. You can breathe.
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  You can remember that you're not the only person who keeps
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  everyone else safe. You are someone worth keeping
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  safe too. And Mama, you're still here.
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  Everything isn't perfectly held together, and it doesn't need to
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  be. But you're here.
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  They're here. And there is still laughter in
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  this house, still noise, still chaos, still love.
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  So maybe for now, that's enough. Well done, Mama.
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  You did good. And that was the final letter in
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  Catherine's miniseries. And what a series of letters
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  that was. The seven letters have been
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  extraordinary. It cannot be easy to take
• 10:07
  yourself back to a time that was so heartbreaking and scary,
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  exhausting and unsure. So, Catherine, the fact that you
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  have spent so much time writing down and then reading aloud
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  these to share with us all on the podcast is utterly
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  incredible. You said it briefly yourself in
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  that letter that you were proud of yourself.
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  And I really, really hope that you take some time to look at
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  what you have put together, what you have done to support and
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  help other families, and what you have done for yourself and
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  your husband, your children and their grandparents.
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  And you feel immensely proud of what you have done.
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  This miniseries might end here at Nikko Awareness Month
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  continues throughout September, so Please remember that there
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  are so many charities and people out there offering support if
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  you need it. And if you have a letter of your
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  own that you'd like to share on the letterbox broadcast, you can
• 11:08
  send it to the e-mail address in the show description.
• 11:11
  It can be about absolutely anything that matters to you.
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  Thank you again for listening and I'll see you later in the
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  week with Brand New Better.