St. Rose reconnects neonatal caregivers with parents, children at reunion

By Jackie Valley

Sunday, May 15, 2011 | 3:33 p.m.

The babies and toddlers smiling and playing in a Henderson park Sunday belied their fragile starts.

Gone were the breathing tubes, heart monitors and oversized diapers that once draped their tiny bodies in St. Rose Dominican Hospitals’ neonatal intensive care unit.

Instead, 3-year-old twins Colbie and Kenna Walker donned matching sunglasses. Five-month-old Ava Ferguson wore a headband with a giant pink flower. And the nearly 1-year-old Veliz twins, Andrew and Anthony, modeled matching plaid overalls and white shoes.

They are the success stories, the infants who fought to survive despite being born early or with other medical complications.

Their Sunday-morning gathering at Sonata Park marked St. Rose NICU’s first reunion since opening in January 2008. The event — funded by the Children’s Miracle Network with donations from Panda Express, Walmart and Sam’s Club — brought to the park about 450 people, who greeted each other with hugs and disbelief at how much the children had grown.

The reunion’s goal was simple: reconnect the parents, children and NICU caregivers who often form strong bonds throughout the babies’ hospital stays.

“Basically, we just wanted our parents to be able to come and have this closure,” said Stephanie Calaway, a NICU nurse at St. Rose. “We touch each other in very different ways.”

As nurses fawned over the now-healthy Veliz twins, their mother, Andrea, couldn’t help but tear up at the sight. Andrew and Anthony each weighed just a notch above 1 pound when they were born early at 24 weeks.

“I try as much as possible (to stay in touch), but this is a great opportunity to get together,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to do that so they can see what their miracle hands have done.”

The bonds often extend beyond the sterile hospital hallways.

For instance, Shelby Walker, whose twin girls are Children’s Miracle Network champions, formed a playgroup with other moms she met in the NICU.

NICU nurse Eileen Gilmartin wears a cross necklace, a gift from a family she became close friends with during and after a baby’s hospital stay.

And each Christmas, Lori Dukes hangs a stocking a NICU nurse gave to her now 2-year-old son, Crossen, while he was in the NICU. That same nurse greeted the family in the parking lot Sunday, she said.

“It’s amazing,” Dukes said. “I remember them, but you don’t expect them to remember you.”

St. Rose nurses hope to make the reunion an annual event, like it is for many other NICUs across the country, in part to elicit feedback from families about hospital practices, Calaway said. Twenty to 30 infants typically fill St. Rose’s NICU, which has the only 24-hour visitation policy in the Las Vegas Valley, she added.

But most of all, it’s about catching up with everyone in a relaxed atmosphere.

“Some people get up in the morning and feel like, ‘Ugh, I have to go to work,’” Gilmartin said. “But I don’t think there’s a single nurse in our unit that feels like that.”

That’s why Walker said parents owe so much thanks to their babies’ caregivers.

“Every single day we think of them and what they did for us,” she said. “They’re the reasons our girls are alive.”