I wanted to do something special to commemorate Tate's first birthday and about a week before his birthday, I was reading books to Hudson before bed and he picked out the book "No Bigger Than My Teddy Bear". It's a book I bought for him right after Tate was born that tells the story of a little boy whose brother was "born too soon" and has to stay in the "nursery" at the hospital because he's no bigger than a teddy bear. He loved reading it while Tate was in the NICU and still occasionally likes to pull it out and read it again. It will also be a good book to read to Tate once he's older to help explain what he went through when he was born.
So I was reading it to Hudson and it hit me that this was something we could use to help other families in similar situations as ours...It took me much longer to get it all put together (miscommunication with the author when I placed the order) so I didn't actually get the books till after Christmas. So instead of taking Tate up to the NICU to visit for his first birthday we went the first of January...close to the 1 year anniversary of him being released from the hospital.
The whole family went - Hudson even got to go inside the NICU for the first time...But just inside the front doors, not into the actual nursery where the babies are. We saw one of the neonatologists who took care of Tate and several of the nurses. They all remembered us, and our names, and even stuff about Tate and his stay. I can't believe they can remember all that with all the other babies that have gone through there since we left.
I wrapped the books up and stuck a little note in with them explaining why we were donating them and an update on Tate and how he was doing.
And inside each of these books we put this inscription:
And I snapped a quick picture of Tate and Daddy in front of the NICU doors before we left.
The NICU sent us a thank you card the next week for the books. Hopefully they will hand them out to other families with older siblings like Hudson to help them understand what is happening. It's such a crazy time in their lives and I know the other siblings can be overlooked in light of everything else that is going on.
3 comments:
You might not be able to believe how they could remember you guys but I can. I am pretty sure you were the most consistent most committed most anything else parents there and I think that stood out. Quite remarkable.
Hi! I found your name on a comment at Jennifer's blog about her daughter Ava (http://lifecraftsandwhatever.blogspot.com/2010/12/avas-story.html) and did a double take, because my name's Cassie, too - and I had a precious NICU miracle! I'm now following you, and you can follow back if you like (I am a very scatterbrained blogger though, I'll warn you!) I just thought that was pretty neat!
See ya, Cassie - from Cassie :-D
What a beautiful and loving gesture Cassie!
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