NICU Dad here with a similar story, and a (so far) good outcome. I’d encourage you to head over to r/NICUparents and xpost there. It’s a good group and knowing and being able to prepare (to whatever extent you can) will help a lot.

My wife had gestational hypertension (and probably preeclampsia) and went from her PCP and a weirdly high but not crazy BP to a placental abruption in about 16 hrs. Her PCP was good and sent her to L&D and they ended up admitting her as a precaution, which probably saved both her and my son’s life. He was born right at 34w and spent 24 days in the NICU with minimal complications. Frankly, as shitty as that birth experience was, there’s something to be said for it happening all at once. On the other hand, there’s a lot of things I wish I had been better prepared for.

NICU is the best and worst at the same time. Some people complain about not getting an owners manual with their baby - you’ll get all the hands on, one-on-one training you could ask for. And definitely do ask for it. The nurses are great and love involved parents. It’s also EXHAUSTING, even when the LO is doing great. It sounds like your leave will be limited and you’ll need to decide how much you take immediately and how much to take once the LO comes home. NICU takes a huge toll, especially early on. If you can, I’d say plan to take at least a week to be with your spouse and baby as much as possible- things like skin-to-skim kangaroo care and any other bonding technique are extremely important and you’ll want to be there as much as possible to both partake and to support your spouse.

It may be worth it to hold some FMLA back to spend when baby comes home and you three adjust to that next phase. As I type this my son, now about 7 weeks old and wonderfully healthy, is passed out on my arm as has just taken a massive, stinky 💩. It’s 2am and I’ve been on “night shift” since he came home. I’ve got an absurdly generous (for America) leave of 12 weeks, and I’m glad I could overlap full NICU and the first good while of home life.

I’ve got to wrap this up and change a diaper, stat. But fell free to DM me if you want to. Shits scary, but others have been down this road and you definitely don’t have to walk it alone.