October 8, 2024
As a new parent, you expect to be able to hold and cuddle your baby. The instinct is written in all our hearts.
Kelly and Corey Burtnyk, of Sage Creek in Winnipeg, felt it. But they had to wait three days before they could even pick up their only daughter, Annie. It was for her own safety, because she started her life in St. Boniface Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Annie was under a “minimal contact” order for the first 72 hours there. Having to wait that long was hard for her parents to take.
At 28 weeks in Kelly’s pregnancy, her physician told her she had pre-eclampsia, which restricted blood flow to their baby through the placenta.
“She isn’t growing,” he told Burtnyk. “We can take better care of her ‘out’ than ‘in’ at this point.”
Annie was very premature when she was born by C-section in December of 2021. She weighed one pound, ten ounces at birth.
She was intubated the first time they held her in the NICU. “Corey and I had to take turns, once per day. I wanted to rub her back, but they said that was too much for her,” remembered Kelly. “We couldn’t pat her. We could only touch her gently.”
“I have worked as a Respiratory Therapist (RT) at St. Boniface Hospital for the last 18 years, often in the NICU,” said Corey.
“When our daughter Annie was born, they took me and her to the resuscitation or ‘resus’ room, where all premature babies or those at risk of complications go first. There, they have everything they need in case things go wrong: the ventilator, the CPAP machine, medications, and so on.”
“I had been in the resus room many times before in my work, but never in this context! As an RT, I understood what was at stake and it scared me. Knowing everything that could go wrong with Annie gave me anxiety. I would have preferred to be naïve to some degree,” he said.
Nearly three months in NICU
“You might not realize the effort it takes to hold a baby as premature as Annie in the beginning,” said Kelly. “You have to ‘gown up’ and sit in a special chair. She was little more than a pound, but it took two NICU nurses to hand her to us, with one holding the breathing equipment.”
Annie spent almost three months in St. B’s NICU. “It is not a place we wanted to be, but let me tell you, we were so thankful it was there when our family needed it. The nurses who work there, and the specialized medical equipment Foundation donors helped fund, saved Annie’s life,” said Kelly.
While the love and kindness of donors gave their family much-needed hope in the NICU, the nurses brought normality to a stressful situation. They work hard and are often busy, but they spent a lot of time sitting with Kelly while they fed babies. “I felt most like a regular mom in those moments,” said Kelly.
“Just like in any environment, as time passed, I became friends with a few nurses. They would bring me into their conversations; women just talking about regular things. I would find out who was getting married, who just bought a new house, and where they went on their last vacations,” she remembered.
Today, Annie lives the life of a regular, healthy toddler. She is thriving. She loves to play, climb, and jump.
“Honestly, she might be braver than she is coordinated so far! Most of all, she loves to dance. She just had her first dance recital and wore her tutu, her favourite thing to wear,” added Kelly.