Kari Tyree

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,
including the NICU*, where babies go
who need some help; they’re born too soon.
They should have stayed in mother’s womb.

The kind of help they need to live
is help that mother cannot give.
Feeding tubes and special air
are part of babes’ intensive care.

The time mom is allowed to hold
is limited, to protect, like gold,
the precious babes. They need their rest
to grow and thrive; low stim** is best.

Yet time for touch is greater still
than time she would have had, had still
the babies been inside, she sees.
She feels their heads, she feels their knees.

And time for touch grows more and more
as babies stay behind the doors
Mom passes through two times each day:
once in, then once the other way.

Soon she’s holding, bathing, rocking,
feeding, soothing, and, at home, pumping.
Though babies cannot be with her,
They always have a part of her.

Nurses feed with tubes, then bottles.
Therapists check them quite a lot
to make sure heads are nice and round,
to make sure limbs and swallows are sound.

Mom knows babies are never alone.
Many hands hold them, though not her own.
Praise God for time to rest and sleep,
to heal from surgery that cut so deep.

Praise God for emotional healing, too:
for hormones balanced, unlike the new
upheaval of hormones that came just after
her pregnancy ended. Now her laughter

can bubble more freely. She sings with her heart.
She holds onto hope of a future untarnished.
She thanks God for NICU and what it has done:
made her babies ready to come back home.


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* Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
** “Low stim” (low stimulation) is a protocol in the NICU to help premature babies who would be harmed by too much light, noise, touch, etc.