Hello!
My NICU story began on April 5, 2015. On that day I, very quickly, delivered our 26 week gestation baby girl. To make this story a little more stressful, we delivered at OMC’s hospital-not Mayo. Lucky for all three of us, Mayo was only three miles away and the NICU transport team was able to get there in the nick-of-time and assist Finleigh after birth. She was a fragile 2lb little girl who was taken to St Mary’s. We were in the NICU for 89 days, being released eight days before my due date on July 1st!
Of course there were ups and downs. We battled and fought staph, MRSA and a gamut of other things. Finleigh was intubated for about 12 hours, then on CPAP for almost the remainder of our stay. But, she came home oxygen support free and healthy. She’s never stopped growing, and if you do your math right, Finleigh is a vibrant, funny, very busy (almost) 5 1/2 yr old today. She just began kindergarten!
Upon our arrival home, we used Rochester Public School’s birth-3 program (teacher, physical therapy and speech). We also were followed with the Mayo NICU follow up clinics. Today, we still use speech therapy in Byron Public Schools.
So all in all, Finleigh has no lingering effects from her premature birth, but I still find myself pushing her to keep up and fear she’ll fall behind.

My journey with the NICU continued in May 2018, with another quick delivery of our son, Kayson. He was born at 33weeks (planned a bit better, this time at Mayo) and we found ourselves at Methodist for 12 days.
In perspective, this seemed much “easier”. Definitely was a smoother stay. Kayson did not require any oxygen support. He did have some jaundice and needed time to learn to eat! Today, you can find Kayson doing all your typical two year old boy activities. He’s a big dude with a fun personality. Again, we don’t see any lingering effects with Kayson.

Please feel free to reach out and let me know how I can be of assistance and/or support! I think between my two stories, I’ve seen it all! I’d love to hear your story, too.