Holidays in the NICU

We've spent plenty of holidays in the hospital over the last 3 1/2 years (not all of them in the NICU) - with Alexander being in the NICU for 9 1/2 months, we caught almost every major holiday right there. As I mentioned in my last post, we'd like to do a little something nice for the families in our home NICU over the holidays this winter.

I'm leaning towards a little something for the parents in this case: stockings (maybe? or a gift bag?) with candy canes, hot cocoa packets, coffee, maybe some gingerbread men or other Christmas cookies if I can find them individually packaged, maybe hand sanitizer and lotion, and a nice card.

Anyone want to help with this? We probably need to plan for about 40 gifts.

Out of the NICU and Updates

Miss Bethany is finally out of the NICU after 5 1/2 months. Of course, less than a week later, she ended up in the PICU with a respiratory infection, where she still is 2 weeks later. Alexander caught her infection as well, and spent 4 nights in the hospital.

Needless to say, things have been a bit busy here, and I'm only now getting around to packing up the bags I meant to get to earlier this year. I'm hoping to get those delivered this week.

We're set on blankets, unless you've got some knitted or crocheted ones. We're probably going to need to make a run to IKEA for more animals before our next batch goes out. I think we have enough outfits left, but probably will be looking for boy and neutral outfits if not for the next batch, then after that for sure. We have hats still, but could use more. We're adding travel sized hand sanitizer this go-around, and planning to add small notebooks too.

For the holidays, we'd like to do something nice for all of the preemie families in the NICU here. Maybe some cocoa packets or coffee packets? Maybe newborn or 0-3 months onesies? Not sure yet, but watch this space for more thoughts. If you're interested in helping out, let me know.

Gift bags in progress

Since we're hanging out in the NICU with our second child (also a micro-preemie), we felt it was probably time for another round of gift bags. We're short blankets for this batch so that's on my list to get sorted out this week.

With our new arrival, a name change for this little project is probably in the works. We'll update you more when we figure it out :)

Just checking in...

We checked in with the NICU this past week (Alexander was at the hospital to see one of his specialists) and they still have 8 bags left, so we're set for a little bit.

We're definitely short on blankets and small-ish stuffed animals, so if anyone's up for a donation, that'd be helpful

Our first thank you card!

We received our first Project Preemie thank you card in the mail today. It brought a tear to my eye, because we never really expected thanks - I know we were far too busy with the whole NICU experience to even get through thank yous for our delayed baby shower.

Among other nice things, the card says "...receiving your gift and hearing of your story has really helped us to find hope."

And really, that's what this little project is all about, you know?

blankets!

This week I'm knitting a little preemie sized afghan. I really wish I had more time for this - I know I can't do one a week to meet our expected quantity for the year. Anyone want to do some?

Two years!

Today is Alexander's second birthday. We'll be making a delivery of micro-preemie gift bags today in his honor, along with cupcakes for the NICU staff - after spending his first 9 1/2 months there, we still keep in touch with many of them, and they're all thrilled to see his progress.

Along with that, we're setting up this new public blog, to continue publicising our little project, and we'll be posting links to other similar and related efforts.