By Nadine Briggs & Donna Shea

We have decided in our many years of friendship, that we pretty much share one brain. We also find, as time goes by, that we have more things in common than not. One of those things is the experience of each of us having our oldest child spend time in a NICU.

When my (Nadine's) daughter was born nearly 21 years ago, she had an alarming blue tone to her skin. She was not able to take in the oxygen that would turn the blue hue pink. The medical staff went into crisis mode and so did we. The confusion and fear I felt in that moment returns quickly as I recall her birthday even two decades later.

Megan had been born with a severe heart defect related to Down syndrome. She spent the next two weeks in the

Megan in NICU

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). She was learning to live and trying to thrive in those weeks and we were figuring it all out right with her.

Her heart did not have a fully formed wall separating the chambers. Hearts take blood that has depleted its oxygen and gives it to the lungs for replenishment. The defect caused her heart to pump at an accelerated rate to make up for the inefficiency. It was much like scooping water out of a leaky boat. At rest, our baby girl's heart was pumping at the rate of a marathon runner. She would need life-saving heart surgery within her first few months of life. But first, she needed to be strong enough to survive the procedure. That meant that Megan needed to learn what babies without Down syndrome are able to do by using instinct. Megan needed to learn how to eat. As basic as it sounds, she needed to learn how to coordinate the “suck, swallow, breathe” sequence that babies do whenever they feed.

We quickly adapted to the foreign language of the NICU. Her special, high-calorie formula was measured in cubic centimeters or cc’s. There are about 5 cc’s in a single teaspoon and around 15 in a tablespoon. We counted every sip. After my 10 hour day of being with her ended, we would call the NICU probably incessantly asking about how many cc’s she had consumed. Cc’s meant progress, strength and would lead to her eventually coming home and living a routine life. We would become discouraged at reports of a 15 cc feeding that exhausted her and rejoiced at those hearty 60 cc feedings.

At that time, our lives were forever to be more complicated than we even knew. We would survive open heart surgery, delayed firsts and learn sign language. We would teach Megan and teach others about Megan. We would learn what it meant to advocate. We would also learn to appreciate and even celebrate moments that might otherwise be taken for granted. The little things do matter. They matter a lot. We learned to celebrate every sip by hard-earned sip.

When Dan (Donna's son) was born, we also experienced an unexpected and scary turn of events. I was full-term and everything looked fine. Labor progressed typically and Dan soon arrived, but the mood in the delivery room quickly turned to one of business instead of joy. Dan was whisked away from me instead of placed in my arms. He weighed in at only 5 lbs. 12 oz. despite being a little overdue. The umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck and he also suffered from Meconium Aspiration Syndrome, meaning that he breathed a mixture of his stool and amniotic fluid at some point before or during the delivery.

I was taken back to my room. In a strange turn of events, I was there with two of my friends from birthing class, who had their babies on the same day as Dan. It was hard seeing them with their healthy babies, but I also found myself mostly in a state of feeling nothing or panic so severe that I was just shut down. (On a side note, we all remained good friends throughout the early years of our kids' childhoods and celebrated their birthdays together). We were informed that Dan would have to be transferred to the NICU at Tufts Floating Hospital, so my baby had to leave in an ambulance without me. I continued to stay in the hospital, struggling with what I now understand was some pretty significant postpartum depression and black thoughts that were downright scary and out of character for me.

Since I had such an easy delivery up until then, I was discharged a day or so later. We made the trip Boston every day for a week, where Dan was being treated for the aspiration and severe jaundice. It looked like he was visiting a tanning salon in his little sunglasses. I learned many things about livers, bilirubin, and jaundice that week. We were fortunate in that he was ready to go home at the end of that long week, with no lingering ill effects.

I still have Dan's "cuteness award" that his team bestowed on him.I am eternally grateful to the amazing people that staff these NICUs and hold our hands with their own hearts while we literally breathe for our babies.