Last summer, I attended the delivery of an extremely premature infant who was not expected to survive. Due to unexpected circumstances the mom delivered the baby in the middle of the night before any of her family could get to the hospital. I swaddled the very tiny infant and rocked him quietly in the corner of the room until she was ready to hold him for the first and last time. A few weeks later, a small blue envelope arrived at the NICU desk, it was a letter from that mom. I will never forget the words she wrote, “I don’t remember many details of that night but I know a large crew of people waited to meet my son, hoping to bring him back to life but he never took a breath. I remember a nurse staying with him until I was ready to hold him… I remember beautiful strangers ready to fight for my son’s life. Thank you for trying, thank you for caring.” I still have the letter, reading it reminds me that sometimes the smallest, instinctive, gesture in a moment of grief -that you don’t think anyone noticed- can make the biggest difference.
A few weeks later I was paged to an emergent c-section for loss of fetal heart tones. The NICU team and I raced to the OR and prepared for the worst. The OB team had the baby out in what felt like seconds and handed me a beautiful, term baby girl who let out the loudest, most amazing cry. After things calmed down and I sat with the new dad in the PACU, I watched this big, burley man almost melt as his newborn daughter grabbed his finger. He started shaking his head and whispered, “Damn, that’s some amazing s***, man!” All I could do was smile and agree. It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos that is the NICU but in that moment I was reminded that what we do really is pretty awesome.
Those little moments, that may not last more than a few seconds, often touch your heart so deeply, they leave you a different person. The moments that are all to easily taken for granted, those are the moments I am thankful for. I think Winnie-the-Pooh said it best, “Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our heart.”
~ Kristin Howard