A couple’s experience of NICU and how it made their relationship stronger

This week on the podcast we talked to the wonderful Danielle and Tyler Morris,  a couple who had their son at 24 weeks and 4 days, which makes him a micropreemie. Their journey inspired Danielle to set up @nicu_experience on Instagram, where she raises awareness for NICU and prematurity for her amazing community of over 6000 followers and beyond. Her content is so honest and relatable; the Miracle Moon team loves following her, so head over to her page if you’re not already following!

Here are some of the highlights from our chat with Danielle and Tyler but head over to our podcast to hear their full story.

Our story

Frankie: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into parenthood and what that's looked like for you guys?

Danielle: Tyler and I have been together 14 years now, married eight, and we've always known that we wanted to have children. When we started to explore trying to have a child, it was just negative test after negative test and we were kind of at the point where we were looking into receiving fertility treatment through a clinic; we had been trying for about 12 months at that point. So we did that and then the pandemic started within weeks of us submitting our referral. We didn't know if fertility treatments would be put on pause, just like so many things in the world.

It was kind of unnerving because we didn't know what the actual root of the cause [of our infertility] was, so that was hard. As a couple, it was almost always on our minds as we were locked in our house during the pandemic. When we finally were able to get into the clinic and everything was looked over, it was determined that I just wasn't ovulating naturally, which is obviously a huge problem when you're trying to conceive. And I also needed to have some surgery to kind of just clean up my uterus to hopefully have a full-term healthy pregnancy. And that was also a lonely, scary time because we were in the pandemic still and I had to do a lot of the testing by myself. Very invasive tests and I couldn't bring Tyler with me and it just felt very lonely because we couldn't experience that together. It was him waiting in the car for me, which I guess in a way prepared us for what we would experience in the NICU. I do believe that our fertility journey did prepare us a lot in a lot of ways for that.

We got pregnant on our first try of fertility treatment and we were going into it thinking “Okay, if it doesn't work this first time then we'll learn something from it. The team will learn something from it. And we'll be able to put all that towards the next try.” So we were very shocked when it did happen. But it was the greatest, greatest news we could have ever received. We were just thrilled after such a long road to get to that point.

Frankie: I know a lot of people who have been through that fertility struggle and the NICU and there are a lot of really similar feelings around that. That guilt and that loss, it's so much, isn't it? So having that on top of the NICU experience as well, it's a lot for you guys to make sense of.

Tyler: Yeah. You do feel like something has been taken away.

Danielle: For sure. Yeah. For sure. It's almost like you're putting your dreams and hopes in someone else's hands, which is very similar to the NICU as well. It's like you're co-parenting with a team.

Frankie: So your son was born at 24 weeks and do you know the reasoning for why he was born so early?

Danielle: PPROM and my cervix just was not compatible with pregnancy. I was four centimetres dilated for a few days and had no idea I was even in labour. But that morning I woke up and something told me inside “Something's not right, you need to go to the hospital.”. I just remember being very calm. Tyler was in the other room and I said, “We need to go to the hospital”. And I said it very matter of fact. Sometimes I can spiral out and be very worried. But in that moment, it was like my body knew, “No, you need to just stay calm”.

Our world was flipped upside down in a matter of 15 minutes after we saw a doctor and again, that was all during pandemic times so Tyler wasn't even allowed to be in the room with me. He was in a waiting room then he was finally brought in and we were able to see each other for a few moments, but it was very, very hard because we didn't know what was happening.

Frankie: And how was that for you, Tyler, not being able to be there?

Tyler: Yeah, it was definitely odd throughout the whole process. I remember dropping her off at the fertility clinic and literally just sitting out in the parking lot each time. You want to be there. You want to be able to see the ultrasounds and do everything that everyone has talked about before. These are the little things that I guessed the dad gets to be involved with. I'll never forget being at the hospital and I was in a waiting room with a couple of other dads and we were talking about returning to work from the pandemic and about 15 minutes later they pulled me in and our lives changed in those 15 minutes. That's for sure.

It may sound silly, but I remember when Danielle had first told me that we were going to be having our little one that day, she had got me a little book “Becoming a Dad”. And I'm at month four in that book. I think I was on chapter four of nine chapters and I was not even halfway through this at that point. So you know, even silly things like that, put it into perspective.  

There's definitely that transition where things went from just worrying about our son and trying to keep him inside for as long as possible to now worrying your wife really could be in harm at this point.

Those are minutes that feel like hours that feel like days.

Danielle and Tyler talk us through their son's journey in NICU in-depth, so make sure you head over and listen to the podcast to hear more about that.

Frankie: Am I right in thinking that you've recently been through his first birthday in April? and how was that for you guys?

Danielle: It was better than I was expecting it to be. On his actual birthday, we were actually back at the hospital because they scheduled a bunch of follow-ups for him on that day but we kind of took it as a sign that it was supposed to happen that way.

We went back to the hospital on that day as a family. We left that day and went and celebrated as a family. He got to come home with us. I think we were so distracted from everything that was going on that it was probably the best scenario because we were so busy.

But there's nothing like watching all the people that you love singing Happy Birthday to your baby. That was a moment for me where I was looking around the room and saw family and close friends who love us and now love him. And that was a pretty surreal moment because we didn't have that kind of family experience at the start of Jack's life, introducing everyone and having grandparents hold him. It was a pretty full circle, surreal moment.

There is so much more to Danielle and Tyler’s story, so please do find us wherever you listen to your podcasts and check out S2E22: A couple’s experience of NICU and how it made their relationship stronger. We touch on their experiences when their son was diagnosed with NEC, their 210-day NICU stay and how they’ve kept their relationship strong whilst dealing with trauma.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us Danielle and Tyler. Don’t forget to connect with Danielle at @nicu_experience. And, as always, thank you to Cover My Bubble for making this season of the Miracle Moon podcast happen.