September is NICU Awareness Month

September is NICU Awareness Month, a time that is both tender and powerful for me. My daughter was born too early after I developed HELLP syndrome, a life-threatening condition that came without warning. In a matter of hours, my life and her life were on the line. She spent two months in the NICU, and those days stretched into something I can only describe as both fragile and infinite.

How do you put into words the sound of monitors beeping through the night, the weight of tiny wires taped to your baby’s skin, the long hours of waiting to hold her? Those experiences carve into you in ways that are hard to name. For me, writing became the lifeline. Poetry gave me a way to sit with the grief, the fear, and—just as importantly—the joy of watching my daughter fight her way into the world.

Two of my poetry collections came from this journey:

• this deep, wide, dark world (Alien Buddha Press)

• A Limb Outgrowing a Weathered Tree (Finishing Line Press)

  
  

Both books wrestle with the language of survival, the unspoken ache of NICU days, and the ways motherhood remakes you after trauma. Writing them wasn’t just about documenting an experience, it was about finding a way through it.

If you or someone you love has walked through the NICU, you know how heavy and holy that space is. For NICU Awareness Month, I invite you to sit with these poems, to enter the stories they carry, and to remember the families who are in the NICU right now.

If you’re interested in supporting this work, I would be so grateful if you purchased a copy of one (or both) collections today.

• this deep, wide, dark world – Alien Buddha Press

• A Limb Outgrowing a Weathered Tree – Finishing Line Press

  
  

Thank you for reading, remembering, and honoring these stories with me.