NICU reunion

Saturday was the annual NICU reunion for St. Vincent Women's. Wow, what a production. I was expecting a cute little get together in one of the park's shelters, maybe a hospital spokesperson would say a few words and then everyone would chit-chat about their past year. Boy was I wrong! It was a mini-carnival. There was face painting, pony rides, rock climbing wall, bounce houses (plural), lasso the steer, topple the bottles and a car merry-go-round. There was even more that we didn't ever get to - it was huge! And busy. There were people everywhere. I was amazed how many families found themselves in the NICU...and this is just one hospital's graduates. When we pulled up I was nervous we'd never find any of our staff. But we did. Dr. Pyle, Dr. Ben Saad, Nurse Sarah, Nurse Alex, Nurse Ashley, Nurse Shelley and Dot were all there. It was so nice to see them again, better circumstances this time. All were amazed at how well Madi was doing. The docs joked that they didn't need to see us except at the reunion picnic. Of course that's always our hope but should we find ourselves in the same situation I know what hospital we will be going to, no question. The timing of the reunion couldn't have been better for us. Or maybe it could have. The reunion kicked off the week everything started happening for us last year.

As of about noon today it was exactly one year ago that we walked into Carmel St. Vincent so the doctor on call could make sure everything was okay. "It sounds like everything's fine but since I'm just up the road from you, why don't you come on in to confirm." was the conversation I had on the phone with Dr. Moore. He was the only doctor in the practice we hadn't met with yet. What an introduction it turned out to be!