Boise NICU Baby Project

08/04/2022

Meet NICU Baby Kai! This little guy was born just at just under 26 weeks gestation, making him a "micro-preemie". He has overcome so much in his short life already including grade 3 and 4 brain bleeds, getting a drain in his brain to relieve excess fluid, and a cauterization due to complications from NEC. Head on over to my blog to read his whole story.

https://www.keepsakereflections.com/blog/meet-nicu-graduate-kai

08/03/2022

Do you have a NICU baby that was recently released from the hospital (within the last 30 days)? If so, you can apply for a free NICU newborn portrait session with the Boise NICU Baby Project! Follow the link for more details!

After the NICU Newborn and Child Portraits

04/06/2022

Meet NICU Graduate MarleyRae! This little fighter just turned 3 years old. She was born at 33 weeks weighing in at 3 lbs 10 oz.

Mama had a difficult pregnancy from the beginning, starting with a strange rash. Turns out this can happen when pregnant with twins or multiples. Sadly, MarleyRae's twin was lost early in the pregnancy 😢 Poor Mama had all the difficulties of a twin pregnancy without the reward of both babies.

Mama spent over a week in the hospital due to high blood pressure and she was being monitored for severe . She awoke early in the morning to the worst headache she had ever experienced. Shortly thereafter, MarleyRae was born via emergency C-section.

03/16/2022

Meet Baby Baylor! This little fighter was born at 27+5 and weighed

03/07/2022

Baby Ariel was born at 33 weeks due to Momma Stephanie experiencing severe pre-eclampsia.

Stephanie had experienced pre-eclampsia with her first child, so she knew she was at risk again with her second. She did not expect baby Ariel to come quite so early though. They had just started moving from Boise into their new house in Mountain home when Stephanie started to experience a terrible migraine. They went to the hospital and she was admitted. She was given the shots to speed up lung development and also magnesium for her preeclampsia She said the magnesium made her very loopy, like she was hallucinating. What a strange feeling! However, nothing seemed to help with the migraine. She was given hydromorphone and that did not even touch the migraine pain. When her doctor came in the next morning, she made the call to do an emergency C-section because she was afraid that Stephanie was at too high of a risk for having a stroke.

The commute from Mountain Home to the NICU in Boise was exhausting. Stephanie also had a 3 year old boy at home who had been excited to move into a new house and be a big brother. Fortunately, the grandparents were able to help out with watching the older child, but poor big brother was not enjoying his new house very much because Mommy and Daddy were hardly ever home. They are now enjoying having Ariel at home and finally getting settled in.

Moving is so much work, I just can’t even imagine going through the trauma of the NICU just days after starting that process. Stephanie, you are such a brave, strong Momma!

02/03/2022

This sweetie was born at 32 weeks gestation and stayed in the NICU for 30 days. He didn't suffer any major complications, but he did have a feeding tube. He has to wear a helmet for a flat spot on the back of his head, but he took it off just for me 😊

Mama experienced spontaneous preterm labor, with her water breaking at 30 weeks. At the hospital, they gave her a steroid shot to speed up baby's lung development and more medicine to stop labor. She was able to keep him in for a little over a week before going into labor again and having to have an emergency C-section.

They also have a 4 year old at home and the father had to go back to work right away. So Grandma came out to care for the older sibling while Mama was in the hospital. After Mama was discharged from the hospital, Grandma took the older sibling back to her house in California. So poor Mama not only had to leave her newborn baby in the NICU, but she had to be separated from her 4 year old 😭Luckily, the 4 year old had a fun time with Grandma!

When talking about the hardest part of her NICU journey, she mentioned how difficult it was to leave her baby at the hospital. This is one of the most heart-wrenching parts about being a NICU mom. Not only have you suddenly become two instead of one, but you are deprived of the physical closeness when you have to go home and rest. Balancing your own recovery with the fierce desire to be with and to try to care for your baby is an incredible feat.

She mentioned that one of the things that really helped her out was finding the podcast and listening to that.

01/18/2022

This handsome fellow was born at 34 weeks and spent 16 days in the NICU. He was such a little sweetie!

His mama had a terrible headache and didn't think much of it, but thankfully she decided to go get checked out anyway. She was diagnosed with but she was stable enough to be able to get the steroid injection to help speed up lung development. Several days later, she was being induced for a vaginal delivery (after having baby flipped from being in a transverse position). When the doctor broke her water, she felt a pr*****ed cord. Mama had to have an emergency C-section. They didn't even have enough time to give her a spinal block, so she had to be put under with general anesthesia and did not get to be conscious for the birth.

When we discussed what some of the biggest challenges were during her NICU journey, she mentioned the challenge to manage everything, especially having a toddler at home. And poor big sis was so sad that her baby brother was in the hospital and she wasn't able to meet him!

Who else has had to navigate a NICU stay with older children at home? Was there anything that helped you cope with and manage this situation?

12/06/2021

I will start this project by telling my own story. My son, Rio, was born at 41 weeks weighing in at 9 lbs 12 oz. He was a big baby! So why was he in the NICU?

I had a couple of intermittent trickles of fluid, which I thought was just late pregnancy incontinence, but it turned out to be a high leak in my amniotic sac, or Premature Rupture Of Membrane (PROM). Since it had been about 24 hours before I went to the hospital, labor had to be induced to prevent the risk of infection. My body did not take well to being induced and labor was long and difficult. After about 20 hours, I finally got an epidural. However, the epidural caused my blood pressure to drop, which started to stress the baby out. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen. 10 hours later, Rio was finally born.

But he was not breathing.

They swooped him away and began resuscitation. He had been born with the cord around his neck. Unsure how long his brain had been deprived of oxygen and blood, and based on blood tests from the umbilical cord, he was diagnosed with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) with unknown severity. They told us he could suffer from cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other mental or physical disabilities and they took him away to receive therapeutic hypothermia.

Rio was on the cooling blanket for 72 hours and spent 11 days in the NICU. He is currently one week away from turning one and he is doing incredibly well so far. It feels like a miracle. Every milestone is a celebration and a sigh of relief. We are so fortunate to have this strong, sweet, healthy little boy running around our house leaving messes for us to clean up after. Yes, even the messes I’m grateful for!