Baby Blankets for the NICU

Imagine being pregnant. You're excited...apprehensive...filled with joy...filled with doubt.

And then your big day comes...early! You're rushed to the hospital much too early, because something has happened to prompt your body to go in to labor or is happening that requires immediate medical attention.

You're rush in to the Hospital. There's noise...confusion...words and acronyms being thrown around that you don't understand. Hopefully your family is there with you...sometimes they haven't gotten there yet...sometimes you're all alone.

You're scared...you're asking questions...no one is answering you...you raise your voice to ask your questions louder. Someone tells you to stay calm...but you can't calm down...you need answers, and you need them NOW! Only...the medical team doesn't have answers for you...yet.

Through all the chaos your beautiful baby enters the world. She is immediately whisked away so the neonatal team can go to work providing life-saving treatment to your new little premie.

Once the bedlam has subsided and your new precious bundle has been stabilized, you are led to the NICU - Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where you first lay eyes on the most priceless treasure your eyes have ever beheld.

You want to reach out and hold your new little one to you, but you can't because she is encased in a plexiglass bubble, taped to tubes, connected to monitors, and nearly completely inaccessible except for a portal that a gloved hand can fit through.

After a few weeks (for some it is several), the blessed day arrives when you finally get the chance to hold your baby girl. She is brought to you wrapped in a beautiful flannel blanket providing a soft alternative to your warm embrace.

She is so tiny...with tiny fingers, and tiny toes. The weight of her is almost indiscernible. In your conversation with the NICU nurses, you inquire about the blanket.

You find out that a wonderful lady, a retired school teacher, makes these blankets and donates them to the hospital for the NICU babies. You learn that over the course of the last few years this talented lady has sewn and donated nearly 350 of these blankets, not only to NICU but to the regional Foster Care program where she lives as well.

The beautiful teal and blue/green blanket, with the dragonflies and fancy stitching, is your little girl's blanket. It will be the blanket you wrap her in every day. It will become the blanket she asks for at nap and bed time. It will become the blanket she covers both of you with when she wants to cuddle. It will become the blanket she wraps her baby-doll in to cuddle, comfort, and keep her warm with.

These are the blankets made by my Mom. She is very talented, and creative. She is always finding ways to serve and to help others, especially those in difficult circumstances. She has sewn and donated roughly 300 baby blankets for the NICU at Dornbecker's Children's Hospital in Portland, Oregon, and countless others to the Foster Care program in Central Oregon for children who have nothing due to being removed from their home because of abuse or neglect.

In the past she's sewn over 50 dresses, adding to a collection of over 200, that were sent to a humanitarian organization that donates them to children's orphanage in South America. She has contributed to, as well as organized work teams to put together humanitarian kits that have been sent around the world to aid those suffering from the effects of natural disasters and/or poverty.

Her love is in every stitch...every blanket...every dress...every act of service. She is my super hero. Someone to look up to. Someone to emulate. Someone who gives with no thought of seeking recognition.

William Jennings Bryan once stated, “Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true today, and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good. Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other--there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other. The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow--its contribution to the welfare of all.”

By that measure...she is divine.