Another little heartbreaker

This is Braylon. He is only 3 weeks old, but already you can see he's got his daddy wrapped around his little fingers!

Braylon's mom is almost done with her studies to be a neonatal nurse. I have several customers who work in the NICU, and I want to let everyone know what angels they are. I've dealt with them as a parent of preemies, and I've dealt with them as a photographer when I do my NILMDTS sessions. In all cases, I have been impressed by both their compassion and their professionalism.

The NICU is not a fun place. It is filled with babies who are sick, who are too little, but who are the center of their parents world. When your child is in the NICU, it is a very scary time. You have no idea what to expect - no matter how prepared you think you are ahead of time, the reality never hits you until your child is in the NICU fighting for his/her life. It is so easy to give up and think that you will never bring your child home. When you are trying to work through those feelings, the nurses will take care of your little one until you are able to do it yourself. Our nurses always tried to make us feel as much like mom and dad as possible, letting us do all of the diaper changes that we wanted to. They didn't mind when we just sat and talked to our babies for hours if that's what we needed to do.

I imagine that being a NICU nurse is sad sometimes because you always have to say good-bye in the end. It's a huge event when a baby is discharged after a long stay in the NICU. It's a victory and a happy ending - but for the nurse who has taken care of that baby, it is also good-bye. Some parents try to keep in touch, but many don't. And then the next baby comes in and the job starts again...

So to all the NICU nurses and staff out there, a great big THANK YOU. You guys are angels here on earth, helping the tiniest people and their families.