Wednesday Weblog for December 21, 2022 |
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One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR's personal secretary Missy LeHand with 30,000 letters containing ten-cent contributions to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis that arrived at the White House the morning of January 28, 1938
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Leading Off: This Time of Year |
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For more than three decades, I was actively involved as a volunteer and then as an Executive Director for a non-profit known as the March of Dimes. Formed by President Franklin Roosevelt to find a cure for a virus that was sweeping the country (sound familiar) and was mostly targeting children.
I am old enough to remember NOT going outside one summer to play because of fear that I would contract polio and have leg, lungs, or arms paralyzed.
Although I was furloughed from the organization early in 2020, you can't replace decades of caring due to a random management decision of the moment. And, although I am not visibly active for the organization, my dedication to the mission has not wavered. I help in other ways.
The following story is one that I wrote in an email to the staff of the March of Dimes in Massachusetts back in 2006 and re-issued it to the staff and others in the organization every December as a reminder of the importance of the mission work.
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A Different Kind of Manger |
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Whether Christmas Day is important to you for religious or other reasons, or whether it is simply a welcome day off, everyone knows this story: what happened was completely unanticipated by the parents.
Their newborn child was born in an emergency situation, far from home, in a strange place; and needed to be placed in an emergency crib, one that a day before would have been unthinkable.
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A ‘manger’? I’m sure the baby’s mom didn’t envision this particular outcome. I’m sure the dad must have been a little freaked out: unprepared to have his brand-new family spending their first few days together sharing space with strangers, instead of the privacy that comes from being in your own home. Not a normal birth, not a normal script to the first days of life for the child. |
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Imagine the family’s reaction when they learned that there was also some risk to the life of their newborn son. Imagine how it must have felt to have a parade of people coming by, unannounced and non-stop to check on the baby in the strange bed, even if some of them brought presents. No one knew exactly what to say.
Can you also imagine the look of visitors’ faces when they looked around the space where the baby was sleeping? They might have said, "I’m glad this was here, but this is no place for a baby to be.” Most of the visitors had never seen a baby in such a strange place. What about the smells? Imagine the real-life noises from everything in that scary strange place. It had to be a scary time in the life of the new family, don’t you think?
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By now you know that this story takes place in Bethlehem |
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Not THAT Bethlehem, but Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; or Ventura, California; or Memphis, Tennessee; or Cincinnati, Ohio; or Boston, Massachusetts.
The story is that of the family that has their newborn baby begin life in a neonatal intensive care unit. An emergency. A strange place. Not a normal birth, family unprepared, not a private space, a strange ‘bed’; lots of visitors who don’t know what to say, some risk to life. A strange place. Noises, smells and shock at the whole experience. Is a NICU incubator anything more than a high-tech manger? A place to put a baby born in an emergency. Not anyone’s first choice. Aren’t there plenty of ‘swaddling clothes’ in a NICU?
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This year when you hear the Christmas story, regardless of your faith, think about all the families across the country that are living out their own Christmas story in a NICU and the families who are frequent visitors to a children's hospital- on a first name basis with nurses and physicians.
There are thousands of moms who have a wish list that consists only of another day of life for their child as a present. There are dads who wish they were suffering instead of their kids. There are visitors who would trade all their gold, (or frankinsense and myrrh if they had it) for a healthy grandchild.
They say that money can’t buy happiness. For the NICU family, that is very true. No amount of money is going to remove those tubes, fix that problem or get that baby home for Christmas Day. Those babies sleeping in their ‘high tech mangers’ have already been dealt their hand and must play it.
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But money can buy happiness for babies born in the future. Funds donated to the March of Dimes today will buy happiness for many babies by continuing the fight through research to prevent prematurity, birth defects and infant mortality for babies yet to be born. |
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When I was 10 years old, my mom was the neighborhood captain for the Mother’s March, a March of Dimes grassroots program. I collected from our neighbors with one of those coin cans.
As many readers may know, my son Joe, Joey at the time, survived his NICU experience many years ago in Ventura, California,
Although I've personally helped raise millions of dollars during my association with the non-profit, I’ve often wondered if it was the coins collected by a little boy on Howard Street helping his mom, the neighborhood captain, during the Mother's March that helped save my son's life.
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You see, when I was ten, there were no NICUs. There were no NICUs until March of Dimes developed the idea.
As you enjoy time off with your families this holiday season, remember that NICU babies don’t go home just because it is December 25th. The tubes don’t come out because Santa Claus is coming to town, and the fears and tears of the moms and the dads don’t dry up over the river and through the woods at grandmother’s house.
No, the rescue mission doesn’t stop just because the stores are closed. Prematurity and birth defects are forever. When you save a baby, you change the world.
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Surprise Photos at the End: 1989 National Mailer |
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Positive Post of the Week: NICU Graduate |
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The Roll Call of states and countries where readers reside: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC, Wisconsin plus Canada, Conch Republic, Australia and the United Kingdom |
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Ed Doherty
774-479-8831
www.ambroselanden.com
ed-doherty@outlook.com
Forgive any typos please.
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