I am participating in a sponsored campaign hosted by Advil®, as a part of the Advil® Relief in Action campaign. I received compensation for this post. While all opinions stated are my own, I make no claims about Advil® as a product or its effectiveness.
Scarlette was in the NICU over Christmas and there’s really nothing like a Children’s Hospital at Christmastime. They deck the halls to the extreme and while it looks like a winter wonderland, it’s far from being merry and bright. The volunteers busy themselves though, elves making an effort to bring cheer.
If you’re a baby in the NICU at Christmastime, Santa makes a personal visit to your tiny isolette, even if you are on the naughty list for pulling out all of your monitor leads. The day before Christmas Eve I sat next to Scarlette in NICU. My silent prayers for a Christmas miracle mingled with those of all the other parents who were hanging a stocking on a hospital bed rather than a mantel that night.
I was examining her latest chest X-rays with Dr. P, she had what they call “white out lungs” and we were waiting for the test results to tell us whether or not it was cystic fibrosis. I didn’t know anything about x-rays before but now I could tell the difference between clear, cloudy and too white to hope she might come off the ventilator.
A hand closed around my shoulder and I looked up into the face of a stranger. “Excuse me, she said, I don’t mean to interrupt. It’s just that we were here last year with my little boy at Christmas and I know how hard it is to spend a holiday in the hospital so we brought you a gift.” She pressed a gift basket into my arms, wishing me a Merry Christmas and moving on to the next pod. I opened it later, on the mattress in the shared sleeping room I stayed in down the hall, spilling out toiletries and candy bars, paid parking passes and cafeteria gift cards, Baby’s First Ornament and a letter that shared their journey from hopeless to hope, photos of a sick baby and a healthy little boy. I don’t even remember her name but I won’t ever forget her.
And now we do the same, we made Christmas hats the first year with the help of so many amazing blog readers. We donated books to stock the hospital library last year, in honor of Scarlette’s love of reading. This year I’m not completely sure what we’ll do (I am open to suggestions!) but I know it’s a tradition we’ll carry on, and is important for Scarlette to be a part of as she grows.
We also walk. In my tight-knit group of preemie moms, we all walk. Every year different cities across the country hold a March For Babies event to raise money for treatment of premature babies and to educate women on the signs of preterm labor. And so we (The Preemie Pen Pals) form teams and undertake fundraising efforts and then we put on our matching t-shirts and we walk, winding through town, up hills, across bridges, calves burning as we push the strollers.
Our friends and our families join us, trudging up hills with their pregnant bellies leading the way, shoulders aching with a fussy baby in arms. And we’re joined by the nurses, the doctors, the staff who work tirelessly to save babies and then spend their off time volunteering for the same cause that they are so passionate about.
Together we’ve raised over $100,000 and put in countless volunteer hours. And the thing about the walk is that while it’s a lot of work, it’s fun. It’s energetic and bright and full of joy, in sharp contrast to the darkness of NICU time that most of us emerged from. It’s a physical representation of hope in the form of countless paces on the pavement. These are the families that have benefited from volunteering, both as volunteers themselves and as recipients. Look at all our sweet preemie babies 🙂 
I wrote about our volunteer experience at the prompting of the Advil® Relief In Action campaign, which honors volunteers who don’t let pain stop them from helping others in need. Before having a child I volunteered in various, sporadic ways, once I even helped run a sports camp for kids. This is funny if you’ve ever seen me try to kick a soccer ball. Trust me the kids thought it was hilarious.
But after our experience at the Children’s Hospital and seeing so many people volunteer in a variety of ways to help the families of sick children, I knew that I wanted to consistently give back to those families too, to share the hope that had been passed on to us.
You can share your own volunteer stories and photos when you follow @ReliefinAction on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #ReliefInAction. You can also go to www.advil.com/reliefinaction to learn more about the Relief in Action campaign and how they are giving back to Habitat For Humanity® International and the Wounded Warrior Project®.
