Dear ______ and ___,
Almost exactly 20 years ago I came back to the NICU from maternity leave after having given birth to our first baby. I was a mess of hormones, sleep deprivation, fierce love for our daughter, and deep angst over not being able to maintain the single-minded focus I thought I should have for my own baby as well as for my patients.
One of my colleagues, a father of older kids who was at that time about the same age I am now, never failed to greet me as “_______’s mommy” during that transition. It was an enthusiastic, loving calling-out — unlike the subtle mockery another colleague of a similar demographic aimed at my husband for carrying our baby’s diaper bag (calling it his “purse”).
____ insisted on acknowledging my baby’s existence, her importance as a person, my role as her mother -- right there in the NICU, even as I was feeling the weight of professional responsibility as a junior attending. His wife, _____, a maternal/fetal medicine attending, knit a pink cabled baby hat for _______. Their loving welcome gave us permission to see ourselves as a family of human beings rather than as individual units of achievement and production. Two decades later, I realize that without that recognition and openness, our story could have taken a very different turn.
And now you two — you three— are setting out on an adventure. Baby ______ is already beginning to shift your careful balance of two people and two careers. I promise you that there is joy in acknowledging the needs, the limits, and the togetherness of new parenthood. Don’t shrink back from the details or the depths of any of these seemingly-fearsome prospects: commit to knowing and loving one another as the days, months, years pass. You’re brilliant, compassionate physicians, and you will delight as well as grow in being parents! Your NICU family has your backs.