Last year, we started a new Christmas family tradition of visiting the
NICU to take gift bags to the long-term families and take treats to the nurses. When we were in there for so long, a family from The Hills who had been through the same thing just a year before gave us an encouraging card that was full of gift cards for
restaurants and gas stations. They didn't even know us at the time, but knew what we were going through and gave these to us. Come to find out, for their daughter's 1st birthday, they had a huge party and asked everyone to bring gift cards so that they could give them to other families who were in the same situation. At Christmas last year, we started our own form of this. We bought gift cards for all of the families currently staying at the
NICU, and took treats to the nurses. We also brought
Witten with us so that they could see how much he had grown. I had heard many nurses make the comment during our long stay there about how they hate never getting to see how the kids grow up, so I wanted them to get to see how well he was doing.
At
Witten's first birthday, we too collected gift cards and dropped them all off at the
NICU along with a birthday cake. We didn't really get to visit that time though because it was so busy that day.
Last night, we began putting together gift bags for a few of the families. Since there were 19 families this time, we decided just to make up bags for the long-term families. There were 7 of them, so we filled up some bags with lots of goodies and a gift card to Subway because there's one right across from the hospital.
This is one door I don't miss having to walk through every day.
Today when we came in, they were all so excited to see
Witten. So much has changed in the 17 months since he left, and they all paused what they were doing to be able to come see him. They joked about how nervous he looked when he saw their scrubs, and the face that he made when one of the monitors for another baby started beeping. Then, the ones that were available let us take a picture. This is by far my favorite new family Christmas tradition!
Today when we came in, they were all so excited to see Witten. So much has changed in the 17 months since he left, and they all paused what they were doing to be able to come see him. They joked about how nervous he looked when he saw their scrubs, and the face that he made when one of the monitors for another baby started beeping. Then, the ones that were available let us take a picture. This is by far my favorite new family Christmas tradition!
2 comments:
What a great tradition. So happy that you were able to do that-I know you were a blessing to those families and an encouragement to the staff!
I love telling this story to people who haven't already heard it.
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