'It's nothing you plan for': Milwaukee family shares their ups and downs of a NICU experience

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The birth of a baby is something a family often plans for, for months or even years. Although it\'s something that\'s been happening since the beginning of time, childbirth can come with its ups and downs.

It\'s something Courtney King and Ed Riggenbach know too well, as instead of taking their newborn Harrison Riggenbach home with them, for weeks they\'ve had to go visit him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Ascension Columbia St. Mary\'s Milwaukee.

\"He\'s been quite the fighter, pretty chill little guy,\" said King. She described the birth of her first child as \"euphoric\" and wanted the same experience for her second pregnancy, with Harrison. However, it didn\'t go according to plan. Ed shared, \"Everyone was making fun of me because I had a very specific countdown of how many days until he came, and that got thrown out very quickly.\"

\"I came in to get checked out, and the direction was \'you are not leaving until you have this baby.\' We weren\'t prepared at home or with a hospital bag,\" said King. Harrison arrived four weeks early, having to stay in the NICU at Ascension Columbia St. Mary\'s.

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Tearing up, Riggenbach said the NICU experience had been \"overwhelming.\" Their baby\'s first moments were captured by someone else: \"I did not get to hold my baby very long before they took him. I missed the first bath because they did it on the night shift, and we weren’t here... today was the first day I got a picture with him without a tube in, and he’s three weeks old,\" said King.

\"It’s nothing you plan for. It was scary, it was overwhelming.\" - Courtney King

\"I was even scared of what he was going to look like. What was he going to weigh? There are so many fears that you immediately go into,\" said King. Harrison was born weighing 5 pounds 3 ounces. His stay in the NICU focused on staff teaching him to breathe and eat.

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King said, \"You really don\'t understand the fear of the alarms, the noises, the tubes and all the cords that are hooked up to your baby.\" Who does understand is Eileen Moran, one of the registered nurses who first cared for Harrison. \"Being a NICU nurse is something that\'s really special,\" she said.

\"I was the nurse that was able to help Courtney hold Harrison for the first time, you know, something that she necessarily wasn\'t sure if she was going to be able to do right away... that is always so special,\" continued Moran.

It was a special moment, amidst the uncertainty, said Moran: \"A lot of times, parents don\'t plan to be in the NICU. It can be one of the hardest days of their life, coupled with the most exciting time of their life: with the birth of their baby.\"

Courtney and Ed take \"shifts\" at the hospital while also taking care of their 18-month-old at home, making sure Harrison has as much time with his parents as they can: \" I would say tiresome, but in ways I didn’t realize would exist before,\" said Ed. Courtney added she wouldn\'t wish the experience on anyone.

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It is an experience that hundreds of families go through in the NICU every year at Ascension Columbia St. Mary\'s. \"It can be different every day. You know, there are so many good parts about being in the NICU, like the joys are really high, and there\'s so much to celebrate. But at the same time, too, with that high emotion and all those things that are so exciting, you do kind of experience, like, really devastating loss and hard days in the NICU too,\" said Moran.

King said the experience of having a newborn can be isolating, no matter \"how strong your community is.\" That\'s why she encourages those with friends or loved ones in the NICU to ask specific questions about the baby, like what the doctors\' reports say, how the baby is progressing, and what things the doctor is looking out for, because \"questions like that help personalize the connection with the community.\" She also recommends that you to be there for the person, offering support in any way possible.

\"It\'s going to be part of his story, and now it’s just a fond memory.\" - Courtney King

King expressed tremendous gratitude to the nurses, doctors, and staff who helped Harrison for the last month.

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Now the family looks to finally bring their baby home: \"It’ll just be nice to be home as a family of four. Just grateful for his health, and there are so many things that we worry about and think of every single day that just don’t matter,\" she said.

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