We Are Survivors : NICU Picnic

Last weekend our crew had the privilege of attending the NICU Reunion Picnic. I remember this time last year, not knowing if we would be invited to such a picnic, not knowing if we would even bring one baby home from the hospital. Only by God’s grace, we brought 4 babies home. I wanted to blog right away all about the picnic, but it was too emotional, and my thoughts were all over the place. Hopefully now my thoughts are a bit more collected. We’ll see…..
I remember the first time I heard about this “picnic”. I was about 14 weeks pregnant and my doctor was talking about another past patient he had run into there. Then he backtracked and explained what the picnic was about, and then inserted something like, “you’ll see, when you guys go next year”. That was HUGE! He believed in us, against all the medical knowledge he possessed, and the fight we had ahead of us. That gave me a confidence and peace about our situation. Seeing him there on Saturday and having my 4 boys to show him was exciting, to say the least.

We were greeted by so many familiar faces and hugs from people who fought for our boys while they endured their NICU stay. It was such a joy to show the nurses and doctors our chubby, healthy, little rascals. We are so grateful for the tremendous care at St. Vincent we received and the people and abilities that God place into each of our boys’ lives, when we could do NOTHING.

I think many have too quickly forgotten (including myself) how amazing these little lives truly are and how this is not the “typical” outcome, since they don’t look or act much like preemies anymore (which is a great thing)! This picnic was another great reminder of God’s ultimate control, His grace, and mercy in our lives. Sometimes we just want to hold on to each of them and weep over them in gratefulness. May Christ be glorified through their precious lives!

DeDe (Henry’s primary nurse)


Nataline (Clark’s primary nurse) Nataline: You better thank me for your fame! =) Can you tell the boys didn’t get their nap?


Brad and I with our “septuplets”, where are their parents, anyway? I thought we were posing with them for the picture!

When your babies are in the NICU you have to wear a hospital bracelet for each baby for security reasons. Well, I decided to take a picture of our survivor bracelets that they handed out. The “Tiny Success” onesies (pictured at the top of this post) were given to us by a triplet mom, Diana, who we barely know from Starbucks, but she’s been a faithful blog subscriber for a while now. Thank you so much! We’ll have to definetly get a picture in them!

Look how far we’ve come!

February 2. 2007

“Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.
How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 6:5-7