A Gift of Hope – Celebrating NICU Awareness Month

September is NICU Awareness Month. In honor of all of the families in our community that currently have a baby in the NICU or have a NICU graduate, and all of the wonderful NICU doctors and nurses caring for these little ones, we wanted to highlight a story of HOPE from one of our parent volunteers…

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I recently delivered my first Jack’s Basket. I parked in the same hospital parking garage I used to park in when our now two-year-old son Josh spent a month in the NICU. I entered the same hospital lobby, where I now met Emily, and gave her the basket. Her son also arrived early. He now lay upstairs on the NICU floor, just like Josh had two years ago. She smiled as I gave her the Jack’s Basket. It was a gift of hope.

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Two years earlier our son Josh entered the world in the hush and frenzy of a sterile operating room, so tiny, just 4 lbs, 9 oz, the size of a small bunny rabbit. Early. As he lay being hooked up
to all the supports that kept him alive for the next month, we thanked God that he was alive and somehow safe now under the dozens of monitors.
Josh’s month in the NICU held rounds of doctors, injections, tubes, feedings, caring nurses, medical decisions, and more prayers than I can count. My husband and I juggled the back and forth of caring for both Josh in the NICU and our daughters at home. We hung a swaddle
blanket over Josh’s NICU isolette bed with the words of Psalm 139, declaring in our little room that he was a child of God, beautifully made. I treasured every moment I could hold him close and ached for him to come home.

One by one the issues resolved, and after more miracles than I can count, we brought Josh home, late at night after a month to the day in the NICU. The approval was given, he passed the car seat test, and each monitor was unhooked. He weighed just over 5 lb. We carried him out, each step feeling like a victory, until we crossed the hospital threshold. We were finally bringing him home!

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Two years later, I stood with Emily in the same hospital lobby handing her the Jack’s Basket. She told me about her tiny son in the NICU upstairs. She asked questions about the NICU, feeding, and about Josh. “You’re going to bring him home,” I told her. “I don’t know if it will be 1 week, 1 month, or longer, but he’s going to come home, and he’s going to do amazing!” Tears
glistened in our eyes as we hugged goodbye. She carried the Jack’s Basket up to the NICU floor.
She carried hope.