September is NICU Awareness Month! As the Mama of a little NICU grad, there’s nothing I want more than people to be aware of the strength and resilience of NICU nurses and doctors, and of course, NICU babies. Neonatal care is no joke; the humans that NICU medical teams look after are so tiny, and their maladies vary greatly. There’s a constant hum of beeping from heart and oxygen monitors, and, unfortunately, there’s more often than not the panicked beeping of a monitor belonging to a baby in distress.

The NICU is unlike any other part of a hospital; it is extraordinarily methodical in order to ensure babies are able to leave as healthy as possible. It is also kept astronomically clean in order to prevent germs from contaminating the neonatal beans. When babies are discharged from the NICU, every single thing in their now-old-room has to be discarded if it cannot be sanitized. Brand new boxes of gloves, masks, and even packages of diapers and wipes need to be thrown away so that the latest NICU grad and their family doesn’t pass along potentially-risky germs to their successor.

We try to curb the number of gifts our kids get (mainly because they’re spoiled 24/7/365, and really don’t need more stuff on their birthdays), so in the past, we’ve asked people to avoid giving gifts for William’s birthdays, and we’ve always appreciated people giving donations to their favourite charity on behalf of William.

When Isla was born (you can read more about her birth story here), we decided that doing a fundraiser for the Surrey Memorial Hospital NICU would be a great alternative to gifts. Her birthday is in December, and I know that’s a hectic time of year, so we will be running the fundraiser from now until her birthday (December 6th), at which point we will be giving the NICU the donations.

If you’d like to make a donation, please follow this link and click “Sponsor Me”; thank you in advance for your donation! We appreciate it more than words can express.

Business owners: I’ll also be doing an online silent auction in the next few months (November, probably) with all proceeds going towards this fundraiser as well. If you have a product or service you’d like to donate to the silent auction, please contact me and we can chat! Thank you times a million! 

A big huge hug of solidarity today and everyday to all of our fellow NICU parents and their bubs. Your strength, courage, and resilience is admirable.

Also, thanks science and the SMH NICU team for sending us home with a healthy baby. I am eternally grateful for her.