“Like An Angel In The Night”
-Shared by Generation O Community Member, A.B.
Part of our special series for NICU Awareness Month 2025.
Our son was born in May of 2022. We’d driven through three states to get to him, after two years of waiting to be chosen as adoptive parents. Our son’s birth parents chose us after seeing our profile with our adoption agency. They knew they were having a baby who had been exposed to opioids and other substances, and each of them already had other children. Due to the circumstances of both of their lives, they decided to make an adoption plan for their little boy and we are forever grateful to them for sharing him with us. He is our greatest gift and joy.
We met them at a restaurant in their hometown the night before our son was scheduled to be born via c-section. After getting to know one another a little bit better and sharing a hug, we parted ways to head home to prepare for the life-changing morning ahead for all of us. On our way back to our hotel, my husband said he was exhausted and really needed a good night of sleep. We’d had a very long drive from our home state, after all. So we got home and went straight to bed. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep - I was so excited! But surprisingly, I fell asleep for a few hours. But I was suddenly awakened by the feeling of the mattress shaking. My husband was trembling under the covers. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “I think I’d better take a Covid test.”
We had made it all the way through 2020-2022 without either of us getting Covid. I thought, “No way. This can’t be happening.”
It was 2am. I got up and dressed, and drove 35 minutes to the nearest open drug store to buy a few tests. When I got back, he promptly took one and tested positive. My heart sank. What did this mean for us meeting our little boy, that morning? I was so heartbroken and angry that he likely would not get to meet his son that day and we wouldn’t be meeting him together.
It was only about 4am at that point. I texted our social worker and told her what was going on, knowing she likely wouldn’t be awake for a couple more hours. We were staying in a suite-style extended stay hotel, so I closed the door to the bedroom where my husband was to keep him quarantined. I spent my time in the living area of the room, hoping I could somehow be spared from getting Covid. When our social worker woke up around 6 and saw my message, she contacted the hospital social worker and asked if I could still come to the hospital, even though I’d been exposed to Covid. It took almost two hours to get a reply because they had to wait for the hospital administrator to arrive at work. In those two hours I paced, I prayed, I packed a bag for myself and one full of soft blankets and pacifiers and love for the little boy who might be mine. I distracted myself with the Today show and too much iced coffee and watched the time tick by, anxious to get to the hospital in time to see my son be born.
Finally - we got the call. I was allowed to go to the hospital by myself as long as I agreed to wear a mask around hospital staff and not return to the hotel. The nurses on the labor and delivery floor were going to prepare a room for me. Before the call was even over, I was slinging the bags over my shoulder and running out the door.
As I opened the door to our car, I got a text from our son’s birth dad. “He’s here!” with a photo of the sweetest little pumpkin face I’d ever seen. I burst into tears. The grief of having missed his birth was overwhelming, the disbelief at having to go into this without my husband beside me, and the immense joy at finally seeing that little boy’s face was too much to bear. I jumped in the car and raced to the hospital as fast as I could.
Each nurse I encountered at the hospital left a lasting impression on me. I won’t forget any of their faces for the rest of my life.
One of them told me that they don’t see this very often - an adoption - and they felt honored to be part of it. I was ushered into the room they’d set up for me to set my bags down. They told me they’d come and get me when my son’s birth parents were feeling ready for me. I sat at the end of the bed, heart pounding loudly in the silence of the room, hands over my mouth, rocking back and forth, praying and reeling.
Awhile later, a nurse with a warm smile came to get me. She guided me into the room where my son was lying in a little plastic bassinet next to his birth mother’s bed. He had a little blue hat on his head with an airplane patch on the front. I’ll keep the specific details of our first meeting private and sacred, but I will say this about it:
The soundtrack of that moment in my memories is a mixture of my son’s tiny cries and the chatter and laughter of the nurses who encircled and rushed around us like angels guarding and rejoicing over a holy moment.
My son’s birth mom needed to rest, and it was suggested that I take him to my room for awhile so we could get to know each other. A nurse pushed his bassinet out of their room and into mine and gave me the run-down of where diapers and bottles were, how often to feed him, and how to call her if I needed her help. I would’ve been lost without her because I had no idea what I was doing. He was my first and only! I lifted him gingerly and held him tightly against my heart. Before she left, I asked if she would take a few pictures of us together and she happily obliged. I was alone meeting my son and without that nurse there in that moment, there would be no record of our first meeting outside of my own memory. I am so grateful to her for taking that extra time with me.
The next night, my son’s withdrawal symptoms started to set in. His cries became more high-pitched and he was more inconsolable. He wasn’t able to take in much formula without getting really upset. I was calling for the nurses and after a few hours of them coaching me on how to bounce and hold him, how to pat his bottom, and offering different ideas for how to get him to eat - they kindly suggested they take him to the front desk with them so that I could get a little sleep. After I’d fallen asleep, I was awakened awhile later by a nurse who was sitting in a chair by my bed with her cell phone flashlight on. She said,
“I really don’t mean to scare you and I’m sorry to wake you up. But I heard about you and I needed to come and talk to you before I’m done with my shift. I’ve been where you are. I’ve adopted three babies with opioid exposure. And I just want to tell you that no matter what happens here, that little boy needs you. Don’t be afraid to love him like he’s already yours. Because that’s what he needs. And you can do this. I promise.”
I thanked her and just like that, she was gone. Like an angel in the night.
The next day, my son’s withdrawal symptoms earned him an official Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) diagnosis and his pediatrician recommended he be moved to the NICU to have an NG tube placed. He had lost too much weight too quickly and he needed those important calories to get through the withdrawal and get his weight back up. I agreed and followed his bassinet to the NICU. After the NG tube was placed, the new team of nurses taught me how to administer a tube feeding. They showed me how to layer the creams on his bottom at every diaper change, where he had developed open bloody sores. They kept the lights low to keep him comfortable. They set me up in a glider chair where I could hold him against my chest, zipped up inside my sweatshirt. Whenever I had trouble with a feeding, they’d jump in and help before I even had to ask. They never made me seem as bumbling and inept as I truly felt inside. They empowered me and made me feel capable and supported.
It was really hard for my husband to not be there. He was so grateful to the nurses for supporting me, helping me through everything as I was there by myself, and he wanted to send a thank you. So he arranged for several cases of cookies from a local shop to be delivered to the nurses’ desk and I made a card for them, thanking them for all they were doing for us and for our son and our son’s birth parents. A few cases of cookies really didn’t come close to enough to thank them properly - but it was the simplest thing we could think to offer in the moment.
After seeing the kind of support my son was going to need while in the NICU, I told the nurses that I was going to go back to the hotel to get my own room, shower, and pack more clothes to stay with him longer at the hospital. I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him - since that nurse told me to love him as if he’s already mine - and whispered to him that I’d be back.
At the hotel, after I showered I felt exhausted. I decided to lie down and sleep for just an hour before heading back. I woke up with a headache and feeling feverish. I ended up waiting three hours to text my husband and ask him for one of the Covid tests from our room next to mine because I really didn’t want to know my results. Finally I did, and the cruelest thing that has ever happened to me occurred - I got Covid and couldn’t be there to support my newborn son through opioid withdrawal. My son only had me at that time. I was the main source of comfort and security that he had known since he entered the world. And poof - I was going to disappear during his lowest moment. I sobbed harder than I’ve ever cried before. Sounds came out of me I didn’t know were possible. I called our social worker and told her the terrible news. She relayed it to the hospital and they were heartbroken on our behalf.
A few hours later, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was a nurse at the administrative desk in the NICU. She told me that she was so sorry I’d have to be away from my son, but if I wanted to get updates, she had a way for me to do that. Since official guardianship paperwork would not be signed for a few more days, I didn’t have legal rights to him. But the nursing staff knew that I was very likely going to be his mother forever and my heart was breaking. So they set up a code word with me. They allowed me to call that direct number as many times a day as I wanted to. I’d say the code word and they would tell me all about my son’s day, how he was feeling, how he was coping, and what the nurses were doing to care for him.
As hard as it was to be away from him for five days in quarantine, those nurses truly kept me from going insane by giving me that small way to reach out and touch my little boy from far away.
My husband was out of quarantine two days before me, so he was then able to go meet our son. He sat with him in the NICU and the nurses taught him all of the same things they’d taught me. The first night that he came back to the hotel, he slipped a sheet of paper under my door. One of the nurses had made me a Mother’s Day card with my son’s footprints stamped on it! I clutched it to my chest and beamed with happiness. It was the greatest gift I could’ve been given. I’ll keep it forever!
When I was finally out of quarantine, my husband and I went to the NICU together to be with our son. His nurse put him on my chest and I zipped him into my sweatshirt again. He nuzzled his little head under my chin. I felt so much peace. I told the nurse how much I had missed him and worried about him, and how grateful I was that they had been willing to give me updates.
She shared with me that one of the nurses from the labor and delivery floor, who had gotten to know us in our first couple of days before we moved over to the NICU, had been staying late after her shifts to come into the NICU and hold him and rock him since neither of us could be there. She would sing to him for a while and then go home. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. It was just another example of these extraordinary humans - nurses - truly being angels on earth.
Twelve long days after my son was born, he was discharged from the NICU and sent home with both of us - we were finally together as a family! Nurses took photos of us holding him in his car seat, getting ready to leave the hospital for the first time. They stood and smiled behind and in front of the nurses’ desk. I desperately wished I had the words to say to express how thankful I was to each of them. I have mental snapshots of them beaming at us and cheering us on as we prepared to leave. We’d made it through this crazy, painful, exhilarating, life-altering experience - only because of the care and support they gave us. Those nurses were doing God’s work and I will forever be so grateful for them.