What Goes Around Comes Around

As you know, Ashlyn was born prematurely and spent 6 weeks in the NICU. Now I have a little story to tell you about our special stay. First of all, the Doctors and nurses were fabulous! They were so kind and respectful to us and met every need we had while we were there. Each nurse would speak to us when they got a chance and would ask how we were doing and give praise to Ashlyn on how her fragile little body was getting stronger and stronger each day. But before I knew that this "NICU" place was such a kind and gentle place, I was quite freaked out! I had no idea what to expect or how things were going to go. But, after my unplanned and unexpected delivery, I had a few hours to recover and the doctors had a few hours to prep baby and then we were all of the sudden on our way down to this NICU place to meet our girl. As we got there we went through these very secure doors (only security would let you through w/ identification), down this dull white hall, then to these big deep double sinks where we had to scrub our arms, hands and nails and remove all of our jewelry (for potential bacteria exposure). Then we headed for the next set of big double doors. By this time, I'm kinda wishing I was still knocked out for like another month, it was just scary. Anyhow, we went through the double doors and into this dark room where there were only lights on around the nurses station in the middle of the room and everything else was very dim lit w/ blinking lights around the heart monitors, tv monitors for blood pressure and breathing machines, and then amongst it all were these little incubators w/ these tiny little babies in them all quiet and sleeping. Not a peep of a noise in the whole room... besides some monitor beeps here and there. Anyhow as I looked straight across the room I saw this one tiny little baby in this isolet with a bright hot pink blanket draped over her plastic little home. I briefly thought to myself that I hoped that was Ashlyn 1.because it was closest to the nurses station and 2. because that hot pink blanket was so cute and it would just make me feel better since I had unexpectedly been stuffed into the hospital for a week prior to delivery and had NO clothes or blankets prepared to welcome her into the world. Well, guess what... it WAS her and a very generous person had donated such a blanket to the NICU to help other moms and dads feel a little more at ease as they made that long walk down that scary hall and through those dark double doors. So, a long story short, now when we see these sweet little blankets fill the shelves of the stores in the fall, we will ALWAYS try to load some up in our cart and return the favor. Ashlyn and I found all kinds of pretty blankets so far this year, blues, greens, flowers, monkeys, polk-a-dots and of course HOT PINK...
I really just wanted to post this to confirm to you that all of your special little deeds don't go un-appreciated. Even if you never know, there's always a recieving end to your goodness and we happened to be those people one time and I hope if you ever have a time of need you are TOO!

See the pink blanket on top?

Here's the beginning of our 2nd annual fleece blanket collection. If you have any desire to donate let me know, or just drop one off at your local hospital. It's as easy as that! ;-)