I had been here before. I had sat in the green recliner, holding my baby with wires attached to their chest, hoping it would be the day they would be able to eat on their own rather than getting milk through their NG tube. This was my fifth baby but my second NICU experience.
After having spent 22 days in the NICU four years ago with my second baby, I prayed that I would never see the NICU floor in the hospital again. But there I was, going through the emotional pain and anxiety of leaving my baby at the hospital each night not knowing how many more days it would be until we brought him home.
I was different this time, though, than I was four years ago—my faith a little stronger, my outlook more positive. The first NICU journey absolutely shattered me. I never stopped believing there was a God, but I did feel abandoned by Him. Every day my baby was unable to come home, I slipped further away from the Lord. My prayers felt empty and on a scale of 1-10 my faith was at about a 2. I would beg God that my baby would take just three milliliters from a bottle, but when day after day that prayer was not answered with a yes, I felt defeated, like God was turning His back on me. As the third week of being in the NICU approached, I stopped praying.
When the time came that my baby was able to eat on her own and come home, my relationship with God felt like that of old friends who had had a falling out. I missed Him, I desired a relationship with Him, but it felt so distant.
The months after the first NICU experience came with so many challenges. I suffered from severe postpartum anxiety and depression, and I would constantly be counting down the hours until my kids went to bed so that I could lift off the weight of caring for someone else while I was trying to care for myself.
My husband continuously prayed for me and encouraged me to turn to the Lord, knowing He could free me from living in a constant state of panic. It would take six months before I finally listened. I confessed everything to the Lord. My doubt in Him, my anger, my sadness about feeling like He abandoned me. I confessed daily, read my Bible daily, and finally turned to others (including my amazing doctor) for help.
In the end, I knew that it was never God who left me, but me who left Him. He was always standing by my side waiting for me to turn back to Him. I slowly rebuilt my relationship with God, and over the next few years, I felt like my faith was stronger than ever.
Then my fifth baby was born almost two months early. From the moment the maternal-fetal medicine doctor told me I needed to go to the hospital immediately to deliver him, I knew God was standing right beside me. I prayed on the car ride to the hospital that my baby would live, I prayed as I waited to be taken back to the OR, and right before the C-section started, I felt so deep in my heart that the Lord was saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve got him.” Then I heard the strong cry of my baby boy as he was taken out of me, the sweetest sound.
So, as I sat once again in the NICU, I knew I needed to stay close to the Lord, not letting my sadness and disappointment about the situation shake my faith. Every day I made it a point to see all the good things the Lord was providing. The sweetest cuddles from our most content baby boy. The nurses who celebrated with us when he would eat two more mills on his own than he did the day previous. The nurse who spent a little extra time in the room, talking to me about how I was personally doing. The doctor who was always positive and encouraged me to spend time with my other kids and not feel guilty about not being at the NICU every hour. The fellow NICU parent who looked me in the eye, smiled, and said congratulations as my husband and I finally got to take our baby boy home.
Every day, God was with me in that NICU room. I know he was there in the room with me during that first NICU stay too, I just ignored Him. The NICU journey is so hard, but it was made just a little bit easier, knowing that God was sitting right next to me as I rocked my tiny baby boy in that green recliner.
by Michaela Gasseling 
