Preemie Video: The NICU Life

AARON: I still have guilt because I kind of, just said, oh, go to the hospital. Just go, get it checked out, everything is gonna be o.k. You're being dramatic. And then getting that call of her in hysterics - all she said is, "they're taking the baby out."

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TITLE: Episode 1: The NICU LIfe

TITLE: Day 1 / 1 lbs 7 oz

AARON: Lauren and I, we've been together - ten wonderful years, married for six of them. We have a wonderful, adorable, precious two-and-a-half-year-old by the name of Logan.

AARON: What're you doing over there?

LAUREN: Hi buddy, what're you doing up there?

AARON: We've been in love for - I'm thirty-five so, thirty-five years. Did you get that?

LAUREN: You're so charming. You were born in love with me?

AARON: That's right.

LAUREN: Aww.

LAUREN: We found out we were having a girl.

AARON: Yup. Perfect family, one boy, one girl.

LAUREN: Logan was getting excited to have a little sister.

LAUREN: What're you gonna say to her?

LOGAN: Tickle! Tickle!

AARON: You're gonna tickle:

LAUREN: At twenty-five weeks, we had to have an emergency c-section and Addyson Rose was born on April nineteenth -

AARON: April nineteenth.

LAUREN: - instead of August second. So she was born at twenty-five weeks. You want to remember to be happy but sometimes I'm just so devastated that she's not inside of me. That was the hardest thing for me - that I wanted her to be with me because I could make her strong.

AARON: It's okay.

LAUREN: You don't realize how amazing carrying a child is and how they grow inside of you and, it's like, you want to feel joy but it's almost - I felt lost.

AARON: Just a complete, on your head, you know, here's a row boat in the ocean with a hole in it and no oars. Go.

LOGAN: Wait. Blocks.

LAUREN: When I think about, like, a year or two from now and the kids are playing on the beach, for some reason it just doesn't seem possible.

LOGAN: I wanna make a tall tower for the car.

LAUREN: You want to make a tall tower for the car?

LAUREN: Yes, I know, we hope and we pray that it's gonna be okay but I have different things in my head - like, what if, at the end of all this, she isn't healthy?

LOGAN: Ahh!

LAUREN: The next fifteen weeks are just gonna be about dealing with all the ups and downs that come with having a baby in the NICU, the good days, the bad days. How am I gonna spend time with Logan? How I'm gonna find somebody to watch Logan so I can go to the hospital, finding time for each other, managing our life in a whole new way.

AARON: The NICU life.

LAUREN: Yeah.

AARON: You know what NICU means?

LAUREN: Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit?

AARON: I didn't know that. I do now.

LAUREN: You learn a lot.

AARON: Ready?

LAUREN: Ok.

AARON: You've gotta take the elevator up. You know, the second floor. You come out of the elevator, you make a right, it's like a waiting area and there's a phone outside of the NICU. You pick-up the phone and in the corner, there's a camera. They can see and on the door there's a little baby chick and it says, Don't Make a Peep. And every time you go in, you scrub up - scrub up for a minute, sing yourself "Happy Birthday," and once you're done with the whole song, you're done scrubbing up and then you go in...

LAUREN: It's just a whole new world that you're dealing with. The constant, like "beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep" of the monitors because you just don't get it out of your head and you're like, wait - is that my baby?

AARON: A lot of the experience in the NICU are, like, flashes. You know, it just comes - fuzzy and you get a flash of a good moment or you get a flash of a bad moment.

LAUREN: And I think it's one of those things that you just don't think about. No one ever really tells you, you can have a baby at twenty-five weeks and the baby can survive and you will live in a NICU. I never once imagined how much technology there is to keep them alive and what goes into it and the nurses and the staff and the doctors, like, it's just something that you're just so not -

AARON: You're not prepared for it.

LAUREN: - prepared for. I was in the NICU last night. It's just kind of, peaceful - even though I can't do anything, it's just nice to sit there and ask questions about Addyson and get them answered by the nurse.

NURSE: We're gonna go with the regular feeding.

LAUREN: We'll try it out?

LAUREN: Addyson is like, the only person that has had such an amazing isolette that it feels like home because there's pictures on the outside from Logan, there's pictures on the inside. I brought in blankets so instead of using the hospital blankets, I brought in my own receiving blankets for her to use. They laugh when they see her little cocoon because I'm like, well, you know, she should feel like home. For the first couple weeks she was kind of unstable. Now, I'm confident and I feel like this is good and this is what I'm doing and it's natural and I know that there is an end and it's somewhere - it just feels so far.

LOGAN: That's a big one!

00:05:27

EPISODE END

Love Comes Early Post-Roll

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ABBEY: Hi my name is Abbey. I'm a proud mom of three little ones, and I work at Pampers.

On Behalf of our team I want to say thank you to Aaron, Lauren, Logan and Addyson for sharing their story.

At Pampers we believe every baby is a miracle that deserves to be celebrated, supported, and protected. That's why we're proud Pampers diapers are the number one choice of hospitals.

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#1 Choice of Hospitals

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based on sales data

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