Thank You NICU
7
After Leanne Wright’s son Daniel was born, he had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for five days. While it was a scary and difficult time for their family, Leanne was grateful for the amazing care he received at Niagara Health.
“It had been a pretty typical pregnancy,” Leanne says. “When they scheduled a C-section, I wasn’t overly concerned. I had had one with our older son, James, and since Daniel was measuring big, they just wanted to be on the safe side.”
Leanne prepared for the big day and was excited to meet her baby. “The surgery went fine, but when they held Daniel, they noticed that something was off about his breathing. They tried to suction out his lungs, but it didn’t seem to work. And then,” Leanne adds, “they rushed him to the NICU.”
The hours that followed are a blur of worrying about Daniel and recovering from her own surgery.
“It was hard that we couldn’t see him right away, and when we did see him, he was a lot sicker than we thought,” she explains.
“It was very emotional. He was just so little with all the tubes… it was difficult to see him like that.”
“You obviously know that things can go wrong, but you never really think it’s going to happen to you.”
Between the clinical setting and the flood of medical terms, Leanne felt overwhelmed.
“I remember the moment when a nurse came in and started writing on the whiteboard in Daniel’s room. Her name was Avery. She started writing goals for Daniel on the board,” her voice breaks.
“She wrote things like ‘stay cute’ and there was something so personal and compassionate about that. He turned from ‘Baby Wright’ into a real person in that moment.”
“It was also the first time we could see that he would be progressing.”
Avery calmly explained that Daniel’s lungs were underdeveloped and talked Leanne through the next steps.
“Seeing those small, achievable goals on the whiteboard made me feel like we have a plan. We don’t know how long it will take, but we can figure it out.”
Leanne describes their time at the NICU as a rollercoaster of emotions. “He had good days and bad days, but slowly, he started checking those boxes on the white board.”
His big brother James was excited to meet Daniel, and thanks to the nurses, who gave him things like colouring books and a teddy bear, he felt empowered to be there for his brother instead of being scared for him.
“I don’t think the team at the NICU realizes how much of an impact they have on families. I had this idea of how my first days with our newborn were going to go – all those special firsts and moments of bonding – and instead, we were in a clinical setting, in an environment where days just blur into one another. I don’t know how we would have done it without the constant check-ins and encouragement from the nurses.”
“I don’t know how we would have done it without the constant check-ins and encouragement from the nurses.”
“At the NICU, you don’t really know how the situation is going to turn out, and that is an incredibly heavy burden to carry. If I didn’t have supportive, caring nurses, it could easily have felt too hard and overwhelming. Having their reassurance and those personal touches made the experience so much less traumatic than it could have been.”
Leanne remembers nurse Thalia, who came in to give Daniel his first bath. “It was another thing that we weren’t planning on doing at the hospital, but Thalia went out of her way to still make that time special for us. She also gave us little milestone cards, and those small gestures helped us appreciate these moments instead of grieving the ones we should have had.”
It was this level of care that helped Leanne to keep going.
Leanne is grateful for their care team and the donors who give them the tools to help patients like Daniel.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the care they have given to us. They went beyond their basic duties, and it has made us feel more human.”
After five long days, Leanne was finally able to bring Daniel home.
“It was the best feeling,” she beams. “I couldn’t stop smiling. There are no words to describe the joy I felt that day. I was elated.” As grateful as she was – and will forever be – for the care they received, she was also quite happy to walk out of the hospital that day. “I didn’t want to look back,” she laughs. “We’re out of here!”
Thank You NICU
After Leanne Wright’s son Daniel was born, he had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for five days. While it was a scary and difficult time for their family, Leanne was grateful for the amazing care he received at Niagara Health.
“It had been a pretty typical pregnancy,” Leanne says. “When they scheduled a C-section, I wasn’t overly concerned. I had had one with our older son, James, and since Daniel was measuring big, they just wanted to be on the safe side.”
Leanne prepared for the big day and was excited to meet her baby. “The surgery went fine, but when they held Daniel, they noticed that something was off about his breathing. They tried to suction out his lungs, but it didn’t seem to work. And then,” Leanne adds, “they rushed him to the NICU.”
The hours that followed are a blur of worrying about Daniel and recovering from her own surgery.
“It was hard that we couldn’t see him right away, and when we did see him, he was a lot sicker than we thought,” she explains.
“It was very emotional. He was just so little with all the tubes… it was difficult to see him like that.”
“You obviously know that things can go wrong, but you never really think it’s going to happen to you.”
Between the clinical setting and the flood of medical terms, Leanne felt overwhelmed.
“I remember the moment when a nurse came in and started writing on the whiteboard in Daniel’s room. Her name was Avery. She started writing goals for Daniel on the board,” her voice breaks.
“She wrote things like ‘stay cute’ and there was something so personal and compassionate about that. He turned from ‘Baby Wright’ into a real person in that moment.”
“It was also the first time we could see that he would be progressing.”
Avery calmly explained that Daniel’s lungs were underdeveloped and talked Leanne through the next steps.
“Seeing those small, achievable goals on the whiteboard made me feel like we have a plan. We don’t know how long it will take, but we can figure it out.”
Leanne describes their time at the NICU as a rollercoaster of emotions. “He had good days and bad days, but slowly, he started checking those boxes on the white board.”
His big brother James was excited to meet Daniel, and thanks to the nurses, who gave him things like colouring books and a teddy bear, he felt empowered to be there for his brother instead of being scared for him.
“I don’t think the team at the NICU realizes how much of an impact they have on families. I had this idea of how my first days with our newborn were going to go – all those special firsts and moments of bonding – and instead, we were in a clinical setting, in an environment where days just blur into one another. I don’t know how we would have done it without the constant check-ins and encouragement from the nurses.”
“I don’t know how we would have done it without the constant check-ins and encouragement from the nurses.”
“At the NICU, you don’t really know how the situation is going to turn out, and that is an incredibly heavy burden to carry. If I didn’t have supportive, caring nurses, it could easily have felt too hard and overwhelming. Having their reassurance and those personal touches made the experience so much less traumatic than it could have been.”
Leanne remembers nurse Thalia, who came in to give Daniel his first bath. “It was another thing that we weren’t planning on doing at the hospital, but Thalia went out of her way to still make that time special for us. She also gave us little milestone cards, and those small gestures helped us appreciate these moments instead of grieving the ones we should have had.”
It was this level of care that helped Leanne to keep going.
Leanne is grateful for their care team and the donors who give them the tools to help patients like Daniel.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the care they have given to us. They went beyond their basic duties, and it has made us feel more human.”
After five long days, Leanne was finally able to bring Daniel home.
“It was the best feeling,” she beams. “I couldn’t stop smiling. There are no words to describe the joy I felt that day. I was elated.” As grateful as she was – and will forever be – for the care they received, she was also quite happy to walk out of the hospital that day. “I didn’t want to look back,” she laughs. “We’re out of here!”
