I think that's why I've been feeling this sense of restlessness lately. With fall knocking on our doorstep, I am that much closer to being right back in the NICU. You see, it was this time four years ago that I started to feel secure in my steps. I was newly married and happily pregnant, without an episode of bleeding in weeks. I was confident. I was eager. I was fulfilled. In my 26th week of pregnancy I began to relax and let my guard down, and then the rug was pulled out from beneath me. On a chilly night in the beginning of October, I started to bleed and bleed and there was no stopping it. Within hours my son had come into the world so unexpectedly, so tiny, and the NICU became our home for the next two and a half months. The NICU, this other-worldly place, became the center of our universe .... and we were so small in it. It was our son's first home, his isolette his first crib. It was the place where Brad and I thrust all of our hopes, heartache, expectations and worries, and it never failed us. For that, on this unremarkable day in September, I am thankful.
As my heart fills with gratitude, I am reminded that acknowledging the journey doesn't have to be limited to a single day. Project Sweet Peas and their sponsors are giving us an entire month to honor our experiences! Project Sweet Peas is a national non-profit organization coordinated by volunteers who, through their own personal experiences, offer support to families with infants in intensive care and to those who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss. With a mission that so closely mirrors His Middle Name's own, I was excited when I first learned about what they had created. Project Sweet Peas has designated this month of awareness - the FIRST EVER of its kind - to honor the experiences of families in the NICU and the health professionals that care for them. Neonatal Intensive Care Awareness Month is all-encompassing, with almost every day in the month of September selected as a day to raise awareness about a specific disorder, complication or initiative. I honestly have never seen a month of advocacy like this - one with such a powerful mission!
If you have or have had a child in the NICU, whether premature or not - this month is for you.
If you have suffered a loss in the NICU or shortly thereafter - this month is for you.
If you are a NICU Grad and want a place to return for support - this month is for you.
If you are a nurse, neonatologist, doctor or volunteer that has cared for these tiny lives - this month is for you.
If you have or have had a child in the NICU, whether premature or not - this month is for you.
If you have suffered a loss in the NICU or shortly thereafter - this month is for you.
If you are a NICU Grad and want a place to return for support - this month is for you.
If you are a nurse, neonatologist, doctor or volunteer that has cared for these tiny lives - this month is for you.
So maybe instead of burying myself under daily chores and keeping on schedule, today I will stop trying to keep it all under control and find some time to enjoy these familiar moments. Maybe I will take a moment and let go, and see what happens when God takes the reigns and washes His peace over me. Maybe I will take some time on my own to reflect, pray and heal, because this month calls for me to wholeheartedly revisit our experience in the NICU, and then bless and release it. And maybe by sharing my heart through His Middle Name it will help validate someone else's experience, and let just enough light in to inspire them to begin their own healing. These maybes are my hopes. Hopes that not only me, but all of us, find the time to honor and trust the journey.
On days like today, it's hard to remember how very blessed I am. How very blessed we are. We Lubins have come so far from the days Sutton spent in the NICU that sometimes it can feel as though those days are a dream; a past life of sorts. We hurry along in our busy lives - gentle mornings giving way to work and laundry and karate lessons. To a sink full of dishes and the toy box empty and strewn about. To the dogs needing to be walked and dinner needing to be made. I am guilty at times of not acknowledging these moments as special because on these ordinary days it feels as though there is nothing to celebrate. Oh, but there is! These moments that seem so routine, so everyday, are actually possible because of our humble beginning as a family. An unbreakable bond that unfolded in the NICU.
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