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Coping with the Holiday Blues While Your Baby is Still Hospitalized

You may not be able to bring your family and friends to the NICU to see your baby. Perhaps the hospital rules do not allow this. Or perhaps your child is too ill or too easily stressed to have many visitors. Unhappy when you join the celebrations without your baby, but unable to bring the celebration to your child, you may feel bereft and isolated.

In addition, this is your child's first holiday-season. Being separated from your baby during this time -- a time that typically involves loads of family visitors, may make you feel as if your child has been left out of the celebration. And if family could visit the baby and do not, that may hurt even more. As one mother said, "No one else bothered to visit my child at the hospital that day, they were all too busy." You are grieving not only your losses, but also losses you feel on behalf of your child.

You may also feel unsure about what to do about your traditional holiday markers. If you usually put up a Christmas tree or buy holiday presents, you may wonder if you should save these for your child's homecoming. Do you buy your baby gifts for the hospital, only to take them home again? Even your efforts to bring the season to the NICU may be satisfying initially, but ultimately feel disappointing. One father tells the story, "We got to take Eric out of the isolette, dress him in a red sleeper, take pictures and give him some gifts. But then the sleeper came off, he was put back in the isolette, and his gifts were put on a shelf."

You may find yourself feeling rather numb when you see others around you full of holiday spirit, and you just can't join in. "People expected me to be happy. I couldn’t and they couldn’t understand that." You may feel obligated to search for gifts for others. Out in the world, where symbols of joy and celebration are everywhere, you may feel it quite surreal. This is the world you remember, but you have somehow moved outside of it. The contrast between your losses and fears, and the holiday celebrations is stark. "Everywhere I looked was a reminder of it. The world was celebrating the birth of a baby boy and my baby boy was in the hospital."

You may have expected to take your baby home by this time, and now this hasn’t happened. "When he was born, I was told he would come home in 5-6 weeks, so I started an amaryllis plant which was to bloom 2 weeks after his homecoming, in time for Christmas. It was blooming, and still no mention of a homecoming." If you had linked your baby's progress with the culmination of the holidays, and your baby needs more time to grow or recover, the approach of the season just emphasizes how much further your baby has to go, and how little you can control this.

All around you the world is decorated to celebrate, and countdowns to Christmas are posted everywhere - 5 more shopping days left! "Each time I saw a new part of the hospital decorated, I knew we could count one day closer to Christmas, one more day my son was away from me, and one more reminder that I would be without him for the holidays. The reminders were everywhere that time was going on, with or without my son home with me."

At a time when the world seems to be happy and full of cheer, you are left feeling alone, and disconnected. The struggle to make people understand this experience is heightened when those around you want you to just celebrate -- and your feelings are far deeper and more complex.