05/09/2025
September is NICU Awareness Month. If your baby is in the NICU now, (or if you were there in the past), know that you are not alone. Many of us have sat exactly where you sit today, watching your baby inside the plastic walls of an isolette or humidicrib, longing for things to be different. It is a heartbreaking and isolating experience. Many babies in a NICU are premature, many babies in a NICU are full term. The common thread that ties them all together is that they all need a little extra help and their parents will need extra love and support while they are in there. Whether you are there for two days or 200 days, the NICU is hard. Some days you go backwards, some days sideways, and other days forwards. Some babies go home quickly, some need more time to heal and grow, and for some angels the NICU will be the only place they were alive earthside.
We lived the NICU life for the first six and a half weeks of our son’s life after his arrival, ten weeks early. We ended up being a family who even now, nine years later, still spends a lot of time in hospitals, but many NICU babies go on to lead healthy, happy lives, and while the NICU can feel all-consuming at the time, it often becomes a distant memory. For others, the memories and the challenges may linger, sometimes for months or even years. Whatever your journey looks like, there is no right or wrong way to process it, only the ways that feel right for you and your little love(s).
There is no place on earth like a NICU, and while it is a club you never want to join, once you are inducted as a NICU parent you will find a community like no other, bonded globally with others who have sat where you sat, feeling what you feel. We are an amazing crew.
So happy NICU Awareness Month. We celebrate NICUs and the amazing work they do and the lives they save year round, but it is wonderful to have a month to really highlight their tireless work too. ♥️
