Where Love Goes to War

When I first hopped on a Zoom call with Gabby, her smile and warmth instantly greeted me. Our previous messages had me excited to learn why she loves strangers as much as I do. Since she has one of those light and uplifting personalities, I never would have guessed she was going to share such a traumatic story with me. 

At the young age of 15 years old, Gabby was told she could never have children due to hormone imbalances, PCOS, and some other things. This broke her heart because all she ever wanted to be growing up was a mother. She was 29 years old when she went in to have a lab biopsy done. But first, she had to take a pregnancy test to ensure she wasn’t pregnant. Gabby knew she wasn't but had to follow the protocol. She never got that procedure done because it turns out she was pregnant. The father of her baby did not want to be in the picture but when she was 9 weeks pregnant she met her partner on Facebook dating who already was a father to two beautiful girls. Gabby said she knew he was the one because he would send her TikToks on things like bath toys and such for her baby.

Eventually, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and put in the Emergency Room on January 4th, 2024. In short, preeclampsia is marked by high blood pressure and protein in the urine. It didn’t take long for her to be put on a magdrip and be bedridden. Gabby described the first thirty minutes of the magdrip as, “your body feels like it’s on fire.” Then it ended up giving her hallucinations. On top of that, when she went in for a C-section, she felt like her body was going to fall off the table because the magdrip doesn’t give you full feeling over your body. Sure enough, she was almost going to fall off the table. The doctor caught her just in time or she would have cracked her head open. Her son, Jasper was born on January 5th, 2024. However, she did not get to see him that day as he was only 14 inches long and weighed just 2 lbs. 7 oz. He needed to be rushed to the NICU immediately and put in a bag. Gabby also was not doing well as she was on the magdrip and needed to come off of it. She shared, “People are so shocked when I say my mom, sister, and father were the first to meet Jasper. But I was not well enough to and I couldn’t stand the idea of him being alone or without family.” That next morning, Gabby faced another obstacle. She got magnesium toxicity. She was trying to eat a sandwich and realized she couldn’t take a bite. Suddenly, her vision got blurry. It took all of her to press the help button as she just told her mom to leave the room and check on Jasper. 

She vividly remembers the first time she got to meet her son. It was after 9pm. Her father was wearing a green NICU band that couldn’t get into the NICU at that hour. When they walked up to the room, the nurse looked at her father and asked him if he wanted to go in too. He said yes but he was wearing this green band. The nurse then said, “This is a special moment, you better not miss it” and let him walk in. Gabby couldn’t hold Jasper until he was around six days old. That day he was still in his NICU bag so tiny and fragile. She put her finger in to touch him and he held it. A very odd thing for such a new and little baby to do. It was a very magical moment. The day Gabby got to finally hold her little man, she was admittingly scared, “He was so little he didn’t even look like a baby.” But when she held him, “The world just stopped.”

This fear of touching your baby is normal to a NICU parent. Jasper spent 70 days in the NICU. That was 70 days of war. 70 days of grief. 70 days of sleeplessness and exhausted worry. Gabby describes the NICU as a battlefield. A place where babies fight for their lives and parents fight for their sanity. Every doctor update is a life or death situation. Seeing your new baby hooked to a ventilator, feeding tube, monitors, IV’s, and everything proves just how fragile your baby is and how much they have to fight at such a young age. It’s devastating. Many parents feel helpless because they can’t feed, comfort, or hold their baby whenever they want. They have to ask for permission which feels odd. There’s lots of difficult conversations that go on as well. Oftentimes when there is a little hope to return home soon, something else comes up to put it on hold again and again. And of course, you deal with this chaos while still navigating postpartum, a life outside the hospital, and coming to and from the hospital daily feeling guilty for having to leave your vulnerable baby. Gabby shared she had to quit her job as a banker so she could ensure she could be there for her little man as he was fighting for his life. 

But Jasper wasn’t the only one fighting. Gabby fought for her life too behind the scenes until she slowly learned it was safe and absolutely necessary to speak up for herself. Her body was still believing it was pregnant and her hormones were all over the place as a result. She also faced other natural postpartum things including depression. Gabby shared with me that it took her a while to love herself again because she blamed herself for not being able to carry her baby full term. She felt as though she didn’t even know who she was anymore. Sure, she was a mother now, but she didn’t feel like it. Unless she was in the NICU with Jasper. But of course, in the NICU, you don’t feel like a normal parent. She described herself as a previous natural people pleaser, always doing for others. But this experience in the NICU really helped her find her voice and trust her own gut. She realized she could no longer do it alone and she didn’t have to. She wasn't just living for herself but Jasper too. So, she took on the love that was given every single day in the NICU and hospital. From the nurses, doctors, and other NICU parents. She now believes, “Strangers are our biggest supporters.” 

Her full circle moment happened when she was asked to speak at the Preeclampsia walk. She said it was so empowering to talk about the pain she went through in her darkest hour because now it had purpose. She could be the voice of other parents who went through similar situations or will go through similar situations. Now she volunteers at the hospital and is able to be the voice of other NICU parents. 

Overall, Gabby reminds us that pain is more traumatizing when we choose to go through it alone. It is only when it is shared with others in vulnerability, advocacy, and empowerment that it becomes purposeful and the very reason we are able to experience so much love in the first place. 

Shana Schoone writes “The Heart of Omaha,” a weekly column celebrating all the ways love is shown in the O.