The Families Beside You

NICU throws you into an entirely new world—one there is no rulebook for navigating. It can feel impossible to explain to anyone outside of it.

And so, within those hospital walls, you find yourself building a new community.

When you finally lift your head long enough to take a breath and look around, you realise you are not alone. Beside you are other mums and dads trying to survive this strange new reality. They're learning the language of monitors and medications. They're holding onto hope. They're trying to care for their baby while somehow holding themselves together.

Josh and I slowly got to know the parents around us. We'd catch each other's eyes over humidicribs, exchanging small smiles of encouragement or understanding. Introductions were made. Stories were shared. I remember a mum across from us offering to bring me back a coffee in those early days. Tips were swapped. Advice was given. Tears were permitted.

There was a parents' room in the NICU—a table and chairs, a couple of lounges, a fridge and microwave. We'd meet other parents there, sharing the highs and lows of the day. Some days I didn't feel like talking to anyone. Other days, it helped to sit with someone who simply got it.

Over the seven weeks we spent in NICU with Josiah, our neighbours changed many times. We'd get to know people and then, suddenly, they were gone.

Sometimes those departures were worth celebrating. A move to the lower dependency unit. A baby who only needed temporary support. Or that momentous day when parents walked in with a bassinet and left with their baby, finally heading home.

Josh and I would watch with excitement and hope, believing that one day it would be our turn.

We loved seeing former NICU babies come back to visit. One-year-olds toddling through the unit while nurses gathered around, marvelling at how far they had come. They represented the future we desperately wanted.

But not every departure was a happy one.

The reality of one person's good day is another person's worst day in NICU.

On Christmas Eve, we watched doctors and nurses gather around a neighbouring baby. We knew things weren't good. The next morning, the family was gone. Their little girl had been urgently transferred to another hospital with NEC (Necrotizing enterocolitis)—one of the most feared complications for premature babies.

Those of us left behind felt shaken. We worried for them. We worried for our own babies. It was a stark reminder of how fragile everything was.

Thankfully, their daughter survived.

But it wasn't always that way.

One morning, I walked into the NICU behind a doctor who was receiving an update from a nurse. They hurried into the first room where a tiny baby lay surrounded by medical staff and parents.

Later that day, privacy screens had been drawn around the room.

Family members began gathering in the parents' room.

The baby and parents were transferred to a private room.

We all knew what that meant.

There was a heavy silence that day. Our hearts broke for those parents. And alongside the heartbreak sat another feeling that many NICU parents will understand: fear.

Because every family's story becomes a reminder that it could be yours.

Yet even in the midst of all that uncertainty, there were bright moments.

We talked about things unrelated to our babies. Life outside the hospital. Encouraging words were shared. We'd meet each other's little ones, marvel at them and cheer them on. We brought coffees. Shared food. Listened when someone needed to talk.

Some of those connections have lasted long beyond NICU.

For Josh and me, one friendship in particular became deeply significant.

A couple arrived in the room next to us in early January. They were also staying in the carers' accommodation where many NICU families lived. We got to know them over breakfast in the shared kitchen and through countless conversations in the hospital.

Their beautiful little boy would not survive.

I remember the day we learned they would have to say goodbye to their child. Josh and I held each other tightly that night and cried for them. I texted my sister and told her I was spending extra time with Josiah that day. I couldn't bring myself to leave him for a walk or a nap.

Four days later, we lost him too.

What began in tragic circumstances became a friendship forged in fire.

We've walked this timeline of grief together. Our stories are different, and grief never looks exactly the same from one person to the next. But heartbreak became our common language.

Since losing Josiah, I've stayed connected with many of the parents we met in NICU. Some, heartbreakingly, have also experienced the loss of their babies.

It's a community I never wanted to belong to.

But it has carried me more times than I can count.

There is something profoundly comforting about being with people who understand without explanation. People who know what NICU took from you. People who know what it gave you too.

Sometimes all it takes is a single word.

And there is a collective knowing.

A collective remembering.

A collective, "me too."