Goodbye, 41-4

For ninety-two days, Nyana has lived in 41-4 in BC Women’s NICU. Room 41, spot #4. Today, she upgraded herself to South Nursery, room #4.

It’s a private room—yes, just her and us—big enough for her crib and her things and a sweet glider we dragged from 41 and hid behind the crib in hopes that no one would see it and steal it. It’s roomy enough and private enough for Mum and Dad and Grandma—fresh off the plane this afternoon from Ontario—to fawn over her. It has its own sink and it has its own set of light switches, and best of all, her new room doesn’t have up to eleven other beeping babies demanding attention and activity at all hours of the day and night.

I spent my morning tidying the house in anticipation of my mother-in-law’s arrival for the holidays. Don met her at the airport and got her settled here at home before we took her up to meet her granddaughter—the first baby girl to be born on Don’s side of the family in more than 30 years! I just happened to check Facebook while I waited for jackets to be zipped and shoes to be tied, and this is what I stumbled upon.

I silently stewed for the entire bus ride across the city, trying to understand why the faculty at the hospital hated me so much that not only would they not honour my request for us to be put in the room in the back with our friends, but why they’d go beyond that and take a “Sure, we’ll move you out of the critical care nursery if that’s what you want. Here’s a private room away from everyone!” approach. Being an irrational Mum and not knowing why else they would behave this way, my mind instantly assumed that there was a medical reason why my baby was being moved to the south nursery—the place where babies who needed to live in isolation went.

Don and Nyana entertained Grandma while I chatted with the nurses and acclimatized myself to my our new surroundings. As the three of us passed her around and she spent the afternoon blissfully unbeepy, it slowly sunk in that we weren’t being sentenced to solitary confinement, but rather, we were being given the best opportunity possible to bust out of the NICU as soon as we could. With apologies to The Emperor in the back room—who will be checking out of the NICU soon (yay!) and who must wait until the springtime for an afternoon playdate along the seawall (boo!!)—Princess Stinkypants’ room in the south nursery is pretty swank, blissfully quiet, and quite deserved for a diva.

We’re comfortable in our new private room, and we’ve been assured that unless the hospital is suddenly overcome with six babies at once who all require isolation and/or solitary confinement, Nyana will stay in her comfortable room, flying solo, until the day we finally wheel her home. So maybe we didn’t get that room with a view we were hoping for, but we got the room that Nyana was hoping for, the one with no distractions interfering with her learning how to breathe. This private room is the best place for her. For all of us.