I write this on the last day of September, and just like that, another month has passed us by. Besides September being my, and my husband’s birth month, it has gained even more significance in my life after my son was born prematurely last year. September is Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Awareness month, and like many other circumstances in life, though I was aware of what a NICU is, and does, I never really thought that my baby would end up there, or that I would become a NICU mother. To say that the experience was harrowing, frightening, and life-changing would be putting it mildly. So much so that to this day, I can sometimes still hear the sound of the beeping monitors, and I will never forget how my world just froze when I got that dreaded call to let me know that my son was being intubated.

No matter where in the world, I am sure that NICU parents have a shared experience of sorts – a trauma, if you will. None of us would wish it on our worst enemies. Those four letters are loaded, and though it is very quite simply put an intensive care unit for neonates, the feelings and emotions are so much more complex than that. It is a place that stays with you forever. Undoubtedly, an experience that will change you forever.

The NICU is a place whose walls have probably heard just as much, if not more pleas, cries, prayers and bargains than most churches. It is a place where parents find themselves most vulnerable, and helpless – somewhere where even if an alarm rings many meters down the hallways, your heart sinks even if it is not your baby. It is exhausting and heart wrenching, but also rewarding. It teaches us to celebrate the smallest victories and steps of progress in the right direction. It is believing in miracles, and watching them unfold right before your very eyes.

It is this looming sense of pity and guilt. That although you know none of it was your fault, you still feel bad that something you once thought was instinctive and natural like breathing became an everyday struggle – a battle your baby fought and faced over and over again. That you did not have any, or enough milk because it was so soon, and that his nourishment first came through tubes. That eating was a complex, rather than a comforting process he had to learn, and then re-learn because learning to breathe and eat at the same time was too much for his little developing brain to handle. Terms like bradycardia become everyday language, and you become a master overnight on neonates, and all there is to it.

You will always have thoughts in your mind. The likes of – that although bringing your child into the world early was the safest option for the both of you, staring at him inside an incubator trying to keep himself warm brings you this wave of emotions – that if he were still inside you, he would be tucked in peace. That while his first days on earth were the farthest from what we had anticipated, he will always be the strongest person I will ever know. And one day, I will tell him the story of how, true to his name, Gonzalo, he was “saved from battle” by all his angels and the Big Man up there. That he fought fights no newborns should ever face, and he won. And because of that, I know, that despite some developmental delays his prematurity has brought about here and there, he will face the world head on – the resilient, relentless, and steadfast boy that he is.

There is no experience more rewarding than finally walking out of those steel doors for the very last time with your baby. The NICU is filled with warriors – tiny fighters who weigh just a few pounds, but carry the strength of giants. Babies who have gone through so much more in a few days than some people ever go through in their lifetime.

So to those of you who have never set foot in the NICU, consider it a blessing. I hope you still decide to carry some awareness with you this month – for the neonates who are fighting for their lives, for the parents who are praying and going through their darkest of days, and for the NICU staff who eventually become support systems and family.

The NICU is not just a place where miracles happen. It is not only an experience that will forever stay with you. It is a journey that changes you, your perspective, and how you continue on.