SOLSC '19 Day Two: Puffy eyed blinks

There is something mesmerizing in a newborn baby's gaze.  They fight against puffy lids to open their eyes just the teeniest bit, pupils looking huge and mysterious, knowing and curious at the same time.  Those eyes pull me in; a soft, higher pitched "Hello, sweetie!  Whatcha looking at?" falls from my lips. 

I have spent the last three Tuesday nights training to volunteer at the same hospital where my daughter lived for the first sixty-five days of her life, and where I later worked for three years as a NICU unit assistant and desk clerk.  It's hard to believe that it's been almost twenty-six years since the former, and twenty years the latter.  I was hoping to volunteer in the NICU, but weekend slots aren't open at the moment, and so I am down the hall in the newborn nursery.

It is strange and familiar at the same time.  The nurses are in the same blue scrubs I wore years ago; my scrubs are now a light blue embroidered top and khaki pants.  There are open warmers and bassinet cribs, but no isolettes.  Babies come and go, spending most of their hospital stay in their mothers' rooms.  And, of course, they are born at term, unladen with the  IVs, CPAP cannulas, and pulse-ox monitors that accompanied my own child who lived down the hall.

This afternoon, I'll meet my regular shift nurses for the first time.  Then I'll get to work--cleaning cribs and warmers, restocking supplies and linens, delivering lab samples, changing diapers, and hopefully cuddling a baby or two before delivering them back to their mamas, their postpartum experience already so different than my own.