I always imagined my kids being baptised in a church surrounded by family. My husband wanted them to wear a white baptismal gown that he and his siblings wore for theirs. I thought I would add a little piece of my wedding dress for each of them. I envisioned us celebrating afterward with a little party. Turns out God had different plans.

All three of my kids were baptised in the NICU. We obviously didn’t plan for it to be that way. We wish it would have been better circumstances. But they were getting big surgeries, so we felt it was important to get them baptised in case something happened.

Nicholas’s baptism almost didn’t happen. He was getting surgery to check his anatomy to see if that would help the aspiration at all. It was his first surgery so we called a priest at the last minute. He was late but thankfully we caught him on our way to the operating room. Nicholas was baptised in his isolate in the middle of the hallway of the hospital.

We didn’t get any pictures of the actual baptism which was unfortunate. But what was really special was when we prayed the nurses joined in with us. It was a really beautiful moment and the patience they had with us knowing how important it was to us was so wonderful.

Nicholas’s small intestine was twisted and his appendix was on the wrong side of his body so they removed his appendix altogether. He was two weeks old when he was baptised.

Daniel was baptised at one week old. Just like Nicholas he was baptised in an isolate in his room. In his first week of life, Daniel had surgery for a colostomy bag since he was born without an anus, his lung collapsed when he was taken off the ventilator, and he had a CT scan on his trachea and esophagus. We knew he was going to have an MRI done on his brain, plus a surgery on his nose, so we went ahead and had him baptised.

Daniel’s baptism was the only one where his godparents were able to be there in person. They helped us set up everything which was really nice of them. We knew the priest who did it so that was really special.

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Grace’s baptism was special because we actually had time to plan it. We did it a day before her g-tube surgery a week after she was born. Her godparents were on the phone through video chat the whole time. And we had a little celebration afterward with cake and gifts. We also knew the priest for her baptism as well.

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I wish my kids could have gotten baptised in a church surrounded by family. But what’s important is they are apart of God’s church now. Thankfully nothing bad went wrong during their stays in the NICU. We put everything in God’s hands and He took care of our babies.

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