Showing posts with label Family Support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Support. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2015
Thursday, January 22, 2015
NICU Support & Sewing Meeting Bryan College Station
Earlier this month we had a fantastic meeting that was held at The College Station Medical Center. We had an amazing turn out. Volunteers, past NICU parents, angel parents, and current NICU parents attended. We even had a few of the NICU nurses stop by to visit! Our sponsors at Eatology were also wonderful. Nick was so helpful at our meeting, visited with moms who were there, told us about Eatology, and we found out he was a NICU grad too. Very special. The food was yummy and nutritious!
We're looking forward to our upcoming meeting in February at St. Joseph's Hospital in Bryan, Tx. This meeting will be held in the basement room B/C and again all are invited to attend. Then in March we will be at Scott & White Hospital in College Station!
Below you will find more information about our local NICU sewing and support meetings. We hope you can join us in the future! No sewing skills required, just a desire to support local families who have a baby born prematurely or critically ill. We appreciate your time in helping. If you don't live in our area or don't have time to attend meetings, and you still would like to help, we invite you to become a sew-at-home volunteer! You can contact Jen@preemieprints.org to learn more.
We were so happy to drop off 20 NICU positioning devices & 18 NICU gift bundles to be used and distributed to families in the NICU at The College Station Medical Center (Med Center). Every family who comes through one of our local NICUs should receive a gift bundle. If you don't please contact us or ask a nurse! We will get one to you. We're looking forward to replenishing the supply at St. Joseph's in just a few short weeks.
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| January 2015 Donation Drop Off The Med, College Station, Tx |
About our local meetings:
This year we are holding a sewing & support meeting one time per month, on the 2nd Thursday of every month, on a rotating hospital basis. These meetings are held in Bryan/College Station. Thank you for helping us to share hope with so many by attending or volunteering remotely.
We invite sewing volunteers, NICU families (past and present), and angel families to attend this meeting! We will use our time each meeting to make special items for families in the NICU and also offer our support to any current NICU families who attend.
A meal will be provided at each meeting for all volunteers & families who attend.
This year we will also begin making our new angel gift for families who experience an infant loss. We invite all angel families to join us in making these gifts to share hope with other angel families.
At the close of each meeting we will all drop off our donations to the NICU including positioning devices, NICU gift bundles, and angel gifts.
Thank you for being apart of these very important meetings in support of NICU & angel families! We will be working on positioners, giraffes, outfits and other projects needed. Bring a sewing machine if you have one or just bring yourself. No SEWING SKILLS required!!
TO CURRENT NICU FAMILIES:
Why Attend?
- warm welcoming environment for meeting other families
- parent-to-parent support
- share your story & feelings
- ask questions about your NICU journey
- help with the transition from hospital to home
- become part of the BCS NICU family network
- Join us to be apart of our crafting for the NICU, for a meal, or just to visit for a little bit!
- We also can help families with specific needs such as preemie car seats to borrow, preemie clothes, and other needed items.
Link to February's Facebook Event can be found here.
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| Working on preparing gift bundles before the meeting! |
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| Two little NICU graduate helpers! |
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| Hard at work sewing for NICU babies! |
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
How To Help New NICU Parents
Gift items to help parents in the NICU....
"My son was born at 30 weeks and spent about a month and a half in the NICU in two different cities. I have to say, the most helpful thing people did for my husband and I was to drop off meals - casseroles, soups, curries - as we had no energy to cook, if we even remembered to eat."
"ALSO, a really great prezzie is a great hand lotion for dry, cracked hands. Having to wash my hands and sanitize them at every moment in the hospital saved my son, but destroyed my hands. The hand lotion I got in a care package from some friends was a life saver."
"Another gift to consider is a book of nursery rhymes, children's poetry or other rhythmic stories. The sound of a parent's voice can be soothing to a newborn, and reading gives parents a way to feel close to their little ones in that challenging environment."
"My twins were born at 24 weeks, 2 years ago...it is a long road to say the least. There at many emotions that your friend are dealing with that no one will understand unless they have ever dealt with their own children's mortality. While my kids were in for those four months, my best friend lived across the country, and I missed her terribly at that time. One of the sweetest things she did for me, was she knit me a blanket. When I wrapped up with that while holding the kids, she was right there with me. You are so kind to be seeking advice, follow your heart. So people just left us alone because they didn't know what to do, that at times we did feel lonely, so reach out!"
"We were actually given a visa gift card by a group of friends, which was great because we could use it anywhere, gas, food."
"My daughter was born at 23 weeks and only weighed 15 ounces. They gave her a 5% chance of surviving and we were in the hospital for a little over 4 months. It is an extremely hard road. I definitely agree with the suggestion to give gift cards to restaurants/grocery stores. Also, for a while my daughter was in the Children's hospital an hour away and I would have loved if someone gave us gas cards to help with the commute."
"The NEED and WANT to be close to the babies as muh as possible is really the over-riding emotion for your friends. I hated leaving my son at night and driving home, and driving back and forth. If there is a hotel/motel across the street or nearby, a gift certificate for a few night's stay would be great so she an stay closer and just walk over for feedings but get some rest in between instead of spend her time driving."
"All the suggestions have been fantastic. Anything that can personalise the space their babies are would be welcome. I felt like our twins weren't even ours when they were in hospital. They were wearing hospital clothing/hats, blankets and booties. As soon I was able I used our own things and it gave me the courage to start speaking up because these two little people belonged to us - not the nurses and the hospital."
"Oh, and if you want to help her when the babies come home- set up a free MealBaby.com account for her so she can let local friends/family sign up to deliver meals. It feels presumptuous to create one for yourself, but it would be really handy to reference when people ask now "What can we do?" The answer: drop off a meal when the babies come home."
"It's shocking how having mundane needs met can restore a person's hope and energy."
"There's almost no time for basic self-care. Laundry service, maid service (with a 24 week birth the house was probably left in a complete uproar), lawn service, and/or meal preparation services* might relieve your friend of normal responsibilities that she's too overwhelmed to address."
"One more thought...maybe get a pack of thank you cards and stamp and put her return address on all the envelopes? If you have alot of the same friends, I bet you could even write addresses on a bunch of them. The baby gifts will be unstoppable and she'll be writing a million thank you notes in the coming months."
In General -
1. Clothes for baby
2. You could (even from afar) pay for a maid service to come and clean their home, I know ours was so chaotic and messy from rushing home after 8 pm in the evening, trying to eat, then sleep, then rushing out at 7am to head back to the NICU, a clean home can sometimes make even the worst situations more barable.
3. Food for her during the day, and especially meals waiting at their doorstep at night that are easy to reheat and dont involve much clean up.
4. Gift cards! For meals, or even for general stores for picking up diapers and other things most mamas have months to prepare for or get at showers that mamas of babies born prematurely find themselves without.
5. Care package of snacks for Mama while she's at the NICU during the day...Instant oatmeal, granola bars, CHOCOLATE :) Instant pudding, fruit...
6. Encouragement and prayer!
"My son was born at 30 weeks and spent about a month and a half in the NICU in two different cities. I have to say, the most helpful thing people did for my husband and I was to drop off meals - casseroles, soups, curries - as we had no energy to cook, if we even remembered to eat."
"ALSO, a really great prezzie is a great hand lotion for dry, cracked hands. Having to wash my hands and sanitize them at every moment in the hospital saved my son, but destroyed my hands. The hand lotion I got in a care package from some friends was a life saver."
"Another gift to consider is a book of nursery rhymes, children's poetry or other rhythmic stories. The sound of a parent's voice can be soothing to a newborn, and reading gives parents a way to feel close to their little ones in that challenging environment."
"My twins were born at 24 weeks, 2 years ago...it is a long road to say the least. There at many emotions that your friend are dealing with that no one will understand unless they have ever dealt with their own children's mortality. While my kids were in for those four months, my best friend lived across the country, and I missed her terribly at that time. One of the sweetest things she did for me, was she knit me a blanket. When I wrapped up with that while holding the kids, she was right there with me. You are so kind to be seeking advice, follow your heart. So people just left us alone because they didn't know what to do, that at times we did feel lonely, so reach out!"
"We were actually given a visa gift card by a group of friends, which was great because we could use it anywhere, gas, food."
"My daughter was born at 23 weeks and only weighed 15 ounces. They gave her a 5% chance of surviving and we were in the hospital for a little over 4 months. It is an extremely hard road. I definitely agree with the suggestion to give gift cards to restaurants/grocery stores. Also, for a while my daughter was in the Children's hospital an hour away and I would have loved if someone gave us gas cards to help with the commute."
"The NEED and WANT to be close to the babies as muh as possible is really the over-riding emotion for your friends. I hated leaving my son at night and driving home, and driving back and forth. If there is a hotel/motel across the street or nearby, a gift certificate for a few night's stay would be great so she an stay closer and just walk over for feedings but get some rest in between instead of spend her time driving."
"All the suggestions have been fantastic. Anything that can personalise the space their babies are would be welcome. I felt like our twins weren't even ours when they were in hospital. They were wearing hospital clothing/hats, blankets and booties. As soon I was able I used our own things and it gave me the courage to start speaking up because these two little people belonged to us - not the nurses and the hospital."
"Oh, and if you want to help her when the babies come home- set up a free MealBaby.com account for her so she can let local friends/family sign up to deliver meals. It feels presumptuous to create one for yourself, but it would be really handy to reference when people ask now "What can we do?" The answer: drop off a meal when the babies come home."
"It's shocking how having mundane needs met can restore a person's hope and energy."
"There's almost no time for basic self-care. Laundry service, maid service (with a 24 week birth the house was probably left in a complete uproar), lawn service, and/or meal preparation services* might relieve your friend of normal responsibilities that she's too overwhelmed to address."
"One more thought...maybe get a pack of thank you cards and stamp and put her return address on all the envelopes? If you have alot of the same friends, I bet you could even write addresses on a bunch of them. The baby gifts will be unstoppable and she'll be writing a million thank you notes in the coming months."
In General -
1. Clothes for baby
2. You could (even from afar) pay for a maid service to come and clean their home, I know ours was so chaotic and messy from rushing home after 8 pm in the evening, trying to eat, then sleep, then rushing out at 7am to head back to the NICU, a clean home can sometimes make even the worst situations more barable.
3. Food for her during the day, and especially meals waiting at their doorstep at night that are easy to reheat and dont involve much clean up.
4. Gift cards! For meals, or even for general stores for picking up diapers and other things most mamas have months to prepare for or get at showers that mamas of babies born prematurely find themselves without.
5. Care package of snacks for Mama while she's at the NICU during the day...Instant oatmeal, granola bars, CHOCOLATE :) Instant pudding, fruit...
6. Encouragement and prayer!
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