To My Dear NICU Nurses

When you give birth, you stay a few days at the hospital to recuperate then go home with your baby and start your new life as a family. Unfortunately, there are some moms who don't get to go home with their babies right away. For some reason, they have to leave their babies in the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Intermediate Care Unit (IMCU). This is what happened to me when I gave birth to Audrey and Antonino at 34 weeks and 2 days instead of the usual 37-38 weeks. They stayed at the hospital's IMCU for three weeks under the care of NICU Nurses. During those three weeks, I saw how NICU Nurses reflect the world's unselfish caring. Now that my preemie twins are almost 6 months old, I don't want another day to go by without thanking the lovely NICU Nurses who took care of them.

To my dear NICU Nurses,

This letter is long overdue but I want to thank you because we couldn't have done it without you.

Thank you for being the caring hands who held and comforted my twins when I couldn't be with them yet during their first 24 hours of life.

Thank you for teaching a terrified new mom like me to do kangaroo care with my fragile little babies.

Thank you for encouraging me to breastfeed and pump. We all knew I had a difficult time but you never judged me when all I could bring was 30 ml of my own milk for my twins.

Thank you for answering all my questions from diaper changes to complicated medical terms.

Thank you for noticing the little details like how my twins liked to be carried, which side they preferred to lie on and understanding their cues even better than I did.

Thank you for being by my twins' sides for their blood extractions and screening tests because I couldn't bear watching them getting pricked.

Thank you for rejoicing with me when my twins' IVs were removed, when they passed their screening tests and when they were finally moved from their incubators to their open cribs on Christmas Eve.

Thank you for taking our first family picture when we visited during New Year's Eve.

Thank you for being the angels who patiently watched over my twins every night for three long weeks.

Thank you for celebrating with me when we finally heard the good news that we were all going home.

I will never forget you. We made it through because you took care of my twins and you loved them.

Love,

NICU Mom