[Joshua Hughes, NICU Family Advisory Board]
"The greatest words that were ever uttered to me at Children's, was when a nurse"
"looked at me and said we thought he'd be sicker."
"And so we had just transported in from another hospital,"
"and to have her look at us and say 'we thought he'd be sicker'"
"is probably the most hope we'd had in hours that night."
[Kathy Barnes, NICU Family Advisory Board]
"I remember going and I was just petrified and I was so upset because"
"here I am, gonna leave my brand new baby."
"I don't really know what's going on because they didn't know."
"And you just feel horrible. You feel like a bad mom because you're gonna"
"be leaving. And I remember she put me in a kangaroo chair and taught me,"
"you know, this is what it means and you still get moments with your kid. That's important."
[Amanda Fusinato, NICU Family Advisory Board] From the day after Jack was born--his surgery--
"we didn't think that he was gonna make it."
"They had doctor sleep by his bedside. Above and beyond anything I would have ever expected."
[Julie Cook, NICU Family Advisory Board] First three years of life, Ethan was here
"at the hospital almost all the time. Like it seemed like every other week."
"And all I felt like I did was go to the hospital, take care of him, do research, mess with insurance,"
"but in the long run I think it's paid off. You know?"
"I mean, he's like a healthy child right now and he's happy."
[Joshua Hughes] "Everyone has that one night, that one night where you almost lose them,"
"and it's just so, so hard. But you come back from it,"
"you keep fighting, you keep working."
[Amanda Fusinato] "I was told it's a roller coaster ride, and that was exactly what it is."
[Kathy Barnes] "They do try to empower the families to speak up,"
"not be intimidated, ask questions, be involved in the care of their kids."
[Hadia Khan, NICU Family Advisory Board] "If your child is in NICU and you don't know where to start,"
"the first thing is to educate yourself with your child's condition."
[Dayna Sargent, NICU Family Advisory Board] "I mean I did a lot of reading."
"My youngest baby was a preemie, so I checked out like books from the library."
[Joshua Hughes] "Be an advocate for your child. And the best way to be that"
"advocate is to ask questions and get the answers."
[Hadia Khan] "As parents if you do get overwhelmed with stuff, it's okay.
"Because you're humans. There is so much you can take."
"And there were times when it was it overwhelming for me too."
"So what I did was to step away from the situation to take it all in."
[Julia Cook]"Write things down. Try to have somebody with you"
"like a spouse or a friend or a grandparent or somebody that can"
"maybe be more mentally focused and help you remember things."
[Dayna Sargent] "One thing that helped me was I would have the Chaplin come."
"She came so often it might have been several times a week."
"And if you're in to that she would come and pray over my baby."
"A healing touch is offered. I also did that."
"And the other thing was the music therapy."
[Joshua Hughes] "Uhm, keep a journal of your time here, starting from as soon as you can."
[Julia Cook] "Always go with your gut feeling. I mean, for my other son there's been at least three times"
"I can count where I went my gut feeling and we like ended up practically saving his life,"
"you know, with medical treatment, so don't second guess yourself."
[Dayna Sargent] "And probably just know that you're not alone."
"One thing I did was I tried to go the Monday night support groups to meet other moms"
"and make friends through that."
[Joshua Hughes] "The work that they do, the technology that they employ, the empathy that they feel,"
"the interactions that we've gotten from staff, over and over and over have been so extremely positive that"
"we can't imagine being anywhere else."
[Julia Cook] "Even though I had some of the worst experiences of my life here, I would still come back."
"I still do come back."
[Joshua Hughes] "And so know that you have the strength and that you can keep going."
"I think it's taught us so much about how much we can endure,"
"and how much further we can push, and how much we have to offer if we just"
"put more of ourselves into it."
[Amanda Fusinato] "Just the compassion and--that they have for the babies in there is just wonderful."
"You couldn't ask for anything more."