A Life In Review

September 30th is Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Awareness Day. Last year I shared some NICU facts. In the past I’ve shared our story and our NICU journey. We are almost 2 years post NICU life and I’ve learned a lot since then. I’ve had the chance to help some NICU moms and be part of their journeys. As I write this, I am in the early stages of my second high risk pregnancy. We’ve been given a 30% chance at a healthy, full term pregnancy this round, making this post even more important.

For most of you, it’s a day you never even think about. Heck, unless you know a NICU mom, you probably don’t even realize which hospitals have NICUs and which ones don’t. Did you know there are different level NICU’s depending on your baby’s needs? We didn’t. Or that in theory NICU babies tend to come home around their intended due date?

This is my third year writing to you about NICU awareness day. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted t0 write one this year (I’m sure that some of you are wishing I would just stop talking about this, but I can’t). I could just share with you the other posts that I’ve written, but I think that this year I want to talk to you about something I haven’t really spent time on, and that’s helping FUTURE NICU families. If you want to read about our journey, you can find the post here. If you want to read about ways to help current NICU families, you’ll find that post here. If you want to find information on how to help FUTURE families, keep reading.

** This post is in NO way sponsored by these organizations, I just feel strongly about them **

Organization #1: March of Dimes.

I think at some point, everyone has heard about this organization, but if you were like me, I thought they just helped pregnant moms. I had no idea that they were actually helping bring awareness to and fund research for maternal health and infant health. While their research doesn’t just include premature infants, they put a lot of money and work toward helping parents of premature infants and NICU babies.

Some Highlights:
– Prematurity Campaign: the goals of this campaign are to bring awareness to the problems with prematurity and help decrease the amount of premature births in the United States.
– NICU Baby App– (I didn’t know about this when I had Georgia). This is a place for questions to be answered and a place where moms and dads can find a community of other NICU parents fighting the same battles. You can also use it to keep track of all the information that is thrown at you each day with your NICU baby.

Organization #2: Project Sweet Peas

If you’ve been around me for a while, you know how much I love this non-profit. They help and support NICU families during some of the worst moments of parenthood. They provide resources and gifts to families that are stuck spending holidays in the hospital and they also make sure that parents know that they are seen and that brighter days are ahead (I know that sounds like a hallmark card, but it really is important work).

Some Highlights:
– Their Mission: Their goal is to support families who have premature or sick infants, AND families who are going through infant/child loss.
– NICU Support: They provide free gifts to NICU families (especially around holidays and during September). The donations that they receive are what they use to fund these free (super sweet) gifts.
– Other Resources: They offer support groups on Facebook, they also offer assistance with food and fuel assistance (that’s a big deal for families that have NICU’s far away from where they live).

“Organization” #3: Dear NICU Mama

I put this one in quotations because it’s more of a blog/resource site than an Organization, but they are still doing good and deserve to be added to this post. I found “Dear NICU Mama” about a year after I had Georgia and I was immediately drawn to their posts. They have since added NICU mom apparel that helps bring moms together during a time in their lives when they feel most alone. While this isn’t really for the dads, they do address dads sometimes too on their social media pages.

Some Highlights:
– Main Goal: their main goal is to support and celebrate NICU moms and the strength that they have.
– Connection: You can connect with the team themselves and safely share your NICU story in a place where you will be understood and feel heard.
– Resource Guides: They have guides for things all the way from complicated pregnancy, to post birth complications, to issues with a medically complex child.

If you feel led, any of these groups/organizations, deserve your support whether that be just by sharing their missions, or donating to their causes. As someone who has benefited from at least two of these groups, I can’t express enough how much they help when you are in the midst of NICU chaos (and the healing after).