Like those at Pennsylvania Hospital, babies born at Chester County Hospital’s Moore Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) can spend anywhere from a day, to weeks, or sometimes even months there. No matter the amount of time, the bonds built between these tiny babies, their families, and their caregivers are larger than life.
Koryse Woodrooffe, MD, has experienced this firsthand – as an attending neonatologist on the unit and as a proud parent of a NICU graduate.
“When I became a NICU parent myself it put a lot of things in perspective,” says Woodrooffe. “Even though I worked in the unit full-time, I didn’t realize how strong the bond would be between a parent and the NICU team and how much I would connect with the team. Since then I’ve become a champion to make sure that in supporting our NICU patients, we support our patients’ parents, too.”
To commemorate this special bond, families of NICU graduates, nurses, doctors, volunteers, and staff recently gathered at West Goshen Community Park in West Chester to reconnect and celebrate their “Tiny to Mighty” superheroes. Over 60 yard signs lined the park pathway showing “then and now” photos of NICU graduates. Lots of hugs, smiles, and laughter filled the park as over 200 people gathered to celebrate how far these families have come.
The event was planned by NICU nurse Ashley Knowles, BSN, RNC-NIC so that past families and staff could connect in person. “Of all the jobs I’ve had working in the NICU, planning this reunion has been the most rewarding,” said Knowles.
Nicole Christy attended with her husband Dave and daughter Charlie, who was born at 34 weeks. But their NICU journey started before that, as she recalled in a welcome speech at the reunion. “In October 2019, our son Cole was born at 24 weeks. I didn’t even know that babies that small had a chance. But of course, he did at Chester County Hospital’s NICU. They gave us the gift of 24 days with our son,” Christy shared. Although Cole ultimately did not survive, she declared, those few weeks with him in the NICU are “the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
A few years after the loss of Cole, the Christy family’s rainbow baby, Charlie, also needed to spend time in the NICU. In her remarks at the reunion, Christy remembered: “Everyone said, ‘Isn’t that heart-wrenching to go back to the NICU?’ I said ‘no’ because I cannot leave here without the help of all these amazing nurses and doctors. We were there for about 19 days, and she has been thriving ever since.”
Christy added, “No matter what the situation is, leaving the NICU without your child is heart-wrenching. It was so much easier for us to know that these people were taking care of our kids. They were their second parents.”
“Looking at all these babies, I remember all their stories,” Woodrooffe said. “They come back to you. You don’t forget anyone.”