A Tribute to the NICU Nurses: Forever the Real MVPs🩺🏥🫶🏼🩷

​(As always, brace yourselves for grammar mistakes & scrambled thoughts. Not much editing or AI generating going on here…  we will continue to show up to this space messy, sleepy, & just as we are. We won’t be sharing things that are eloquent or profound, but we will share with you our hearts🩷)

A Tribute to the NICU Nurses: Forever the Real MVPs🩺🏥🩷

When the doctors told us they would be discharging us from the NICU sooner than expected, we were flooded with so many emotions. Of course we were excited to go home… but we were also overwhelmed as we thought about being Faith’s primary care givers for her 24/7 needs… & thinking about doing everything without the constant help from the NICU nurses felt so daunting. 

^2 of Faith’s main nurses (aka real life angels)🩷

A few days before we were discharged, I found myself crying with one of our nurses & sharing how much I didn’t want to do this without her. Those nurses had become so much more to me & Todd than just “Faith’s nurses”… they’d become like family to us… I cried & cried & cried… but in those days between initially hearing we would be sent home from the NICU sooner than expected & the day we’d actually drive our girlie home ~ God did something amazing in my heart & in Todd’s. This is actually when Todd shared with me the quote I shared in my previous blog post, when he said “I feel a new lightness & a peace I didn’t feel before. It is the peace from God that surpasses all understanding. & I really trust God to carry us through everything that will come.” God moved in my heart & in Todd’s heart in such a way that thinking about going home no longer felt overwhelming, but instead we felt filled with peace & joy ~ a lightness & a trust that could only be explained by a God who was bearing the heavy load for us so we could experience it all feeling light. Adding that to the miracle list🩷

^Another one of Faith’s main nurses (aka a real life angel)🩷

As we finished trainings on inserting NG tubes & packed up syringes & said our goodbyes to the NICU nurses that forever changed our lives, I wrote a few thank you notes to Faith’s main nurses. Here is a combined version of those notes, & it is a thank you on behalf of our family to all of Faith’s nurses, & in a way, it is also our thank you to all the NICU nurses out there, who are all doing some incredibly hard work, but some of the most important work around: 

To our NICU Nurses🩺🏥🫶🏼🩷

No earthly words would ever be enough to adequately express just how thankful we are for each of you. Having Baby Faith has been both the sweetest & the hardest thing we have ever done, & as we find ourselves on a road we never thought we’d be on, y’all have been our heaven sent angels. Your love for Faith & for us has been a true gift from God at a time when we needed it most. Jesus said the Kingdom is with the Children, & that what you do for the least of these, you do unto Him. So as you love each Little One that God entrusts to your care in the NICU ~ you are doing God’s work, heavenly work, the work of the Kingdom🩷 I pray & hope we invite you all to Faith’s 1st birthday party next April! Pray with us🩷 But our joy & our hope is not ultimately in answered prayers or earthly healing or a seemingly “long” life… Our hope is in Jesus✝️🩷 & no matter how many days God graciously gives our sweet Faith girl on this side of heaven, we know she has an eternity in heaven awaiting her, all because of what Jesus did for us on that Cross✝️ So keep loving all of those precious Babies as I know y’all will. Y’all are changing the world, one precious Little One at a time🩷

With thankful hearts, 

🩷The Harris Family🩷

link🩷 

PS if you know a NICU nurse, send them lots of love & thankfulness. As C.S. Lewis said, “Children are not a distraction from more important work; They are the most important work” ~ C.S.Lewis🩷 

(& yes we are home!! More updates on that transition to come in a future post!!)🩷

Keep praying for us. God is answering🩷

~Julia (& Todd)🩷

“Then Children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them & pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little Children come to Me & do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” ~Matthew 19:13-14🩷

“For I was hungry & you gave me food, I was thirsty & you gave me drink, I was a stranger & you welcomed me, I was naked & you clothed me, I was sick & you visited me, I was in prison & you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry & feed you, or thirsty & give you drink? & when did we see you a stranger & welcome you, or naked & clothe you? & when did we see you sick or in prison & visit you?’ & the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ ~Matthew 25:30-40🩷