Kaizen Klan: Caden's NICU reunion

On Sunday, October 4th we made the long trip down to Santa Barbara for Caden's 3rd NICU reunion. The drive down brought back lots of memories. Four years ago when I made the hour and a half drive to see him, I usually had my backpack full of text books, an ice chest full of frozen breast milk and home was the "little cottage" across the street (a few times home was my car or the on-call room in the hospital). I remember spending hours sitting and watching him sleep if he was having one of his bad days and on his good days hours rocking him and dreaming of the day he would come home. It's hard to imagine that the active energetic little boy we have today is the same baby who had wires and tubes all over him and and whose favorite thing was to stop breathing, turn blue and set off all of his alarms. When I think of Santa Barbara I will always associate it with Caden's 96 day NICU stay, but when I think of Santa Barbara I will mostly remember all of the people who showed their love and support. Our long term friends and family were there for us, but so were the wonderful doctors and nurses. The NICU is not an enjoyable place that anyone wants to be but I can honestly say that the incredible hospital staff made a terrible time copable. That's why the reunion is so important. Sure it's nice for Caden to know where he's come from but it's much more important to see all the nurses and doctors who took care of our baby, held our hands, encouraged us and loved us unconditionally. It's important for them to know that their hard work does pay off and the beautiful smiling faces are probably the greatest "thank you" they could receive. Thank you to the Santa Barbara NICU staff for giving us the greatest gift in the world. A healthy baby.

Every year the NICU reunion is held at the Santa Barbara Zoo. Don couldn't make it since he had to work so we invited Ma'ma, Aunt Valarie, and Cousin Aleah. We had a pretty good time and more importantly, wore the kids out. The picture above is the 3 cousins in front of the flamingos.

Here they are admiring the Elephants.