Oh, man. Rob and I opened the boxes and started decorating tonight, a task each year that sends memories flooding to my mind this year, I saw this in the first box:
Those blankets were handmade by one of the NICU nurses and her mother, a gift they give over and over to NICU patients each Christmas.
I knew they were in there – I thought of them the other day. But touching them, the Christmas blankets that decorated (and covered) the tops of my babies’ isolettes, reminded me of all the times we pulled them away to see or take out the babies, the times each night when I would hold back a corner as I read a Christmas story, said a prayer and wished them a good night before carefully pulling their festive little blankets back over, wrapping their little boxes in darkness and, essentially, tucking them in for the night.
Oh, the tears.
Then the second box had this at the top:
In the second box I opened was this:
It’s a simple, less emotionally charged memory, but the fact that I grabbed one of those patient-belongings bags to wrap the star from the top of last year’s tree – it just shows how many of those I carried around last year, full of dirty preemie laundry or bottles of milk I had pumped while visiting the babies. I always had something extra to take home, and I often left with one or two of those bags in hand along with my full diaper (pump parts) bag.
Life is so, so different this year. I’m eternally thankful for that.
It doesn’t mean I don’t remember, though, and I certainly can’t help but think of the families that are where we were last year, cherishing the handmade blankets, decorating IV towers with ornaments from home and leaving their babies each night, their arms full of stuff but still empty of what matters most.
How beautiful, you should print this post and drop it off at the NICU, I’m sure the nurses would love to see it and the current patients would appreciate seeing into their future.
This just made me think that maybe you’d like to share a message with some kids and their familiar in the hospital in the ATL. It is very easy. Just go here: http://sharewithchildrens.org/ put in your message of encouragement and your message will be played to every hospital room over the closed circuit TV system. It is very cool and I know you don’t live in the ATL, but you probably have something nice to say that would help people.
I love your babies. I’ve been reading your blog since you got pregnant with them. I love reading about them because my own baby is just 2 months younger. I love reading what is coming next for me! Thanks for all you do!
Ha ha, I meant kids and their families. Anyway, CHOA has many babies in the NICU, just so you know.
We should do something for the families and babies and nurses at the NICU this year. Because I bet having some hope, some light, a little joy and maybe even some cookies made a difficult day a little less so. Let’s talk about it and maybe we can do something simple. <3
I’ve been contemplating the same thing. We also had ornaments appear randomly, gifts from mysterious “elves,” that were such a sweet surprise.
It’s a small unit – fewer than 25 patients – so it’d be fairly easy and inexpensive to put together a treat bag or something small for each bed space. Cookies would be hard because of the no-food rule (for patients, at least – the staff can have food in their break room), but there’s room for little things to keep at each bed space.