When October Grimes was born in September of 2018, she arrived 14 weeks early and weighed just over 14 ounces.
Immediately, nurses in St. Charles Bend’s Family Birthing Center wheeled her away to the nearby Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where they could give October the highly specialized and around-the-clock care she needed.
She would spend the next 126 days in the NICU, with her mother, Lindsey Beaver of Bend, by her side for four to 12 hours per day, said Grimes’ father, Olen Grimes.
“The staff and the doctors were super amazing, super transparent and super caring. They truly cared for all of us,” Beaver said. “They kept us updated at all times. They helped me feed her and helped me change her diaper. They’d get her out of bed and bring her to me — anything to help make me comfortable in what was a really trying time.”
So when a friend told Beaver and Grimes about St. Charles’ NICU Reunion — held on a sunny recent Sunday afternoon at the Bend hospital — the couple RSVP’d immediately.
“We’re forever grateful for this staff,” Olen Grimes said. “Anytime they’re going to do anything for the community, we’re going to support that.”
The NICU Reunion was an annual event for years before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down gatherings in 2020. This year’s version was the first since 2019, and organizers created a fun and family friendly atmosphere by bringing in interactive games, crafts, face painting, a photobooth, refreshments, a bouncy house and more. Dozens of former patients — known affectionately as “NICU grads” — attended along with their families, as well as doctors, nurses and other staff from the unit.
The goal: To bring together families and the people who cared for their babies for a time of reconnection and celebration, said Stephanie West, a CNA and unit secretary in the NICU.
“It’s really rewarding to see the kids and see how much they’ve grown since they left us,” she said. “It’s just a lot of fun and it brings us all a bit of joy.”
Rochelle Simonds has worked as a registered nurse in the Bend NICU for 18 years. She spent most of the reunion giving kids fake tattoos — and smiling.
“When I discharge patients and they’re going leave the NICU … I say, ‘I’ll see you at Costco’ or ‘I’ll see you at Target’ and that’s really why we’re doing this,” she said. “The whole point of our job is to partner with parents to give their babies a jumpstart, and then to see them grow up and thrive and meet their potential. So it’s really nice that the parents are willing to bring their kids to this so we can connect with them again.”
Two of the children Simonds tattooed were Colby Wilson, 5, and his younger brother Owen Wilson, 1. Colby spent 30 days in the NICU in 2018; Owen spent 49 days there last year, said their mother, Kristi Wilson.
“We got to know everyone here really well and we had such a good experience, so it’s fun to be able to come back and see the doctors and nurses and staff,” she said. “We’re excited to see some familiar faces and to show them these healthy, happy kids.”
The feeling is mutual, said Eric Stuemke, a transport RN in the NICU who was born at 34 weeks on the fifth floor of St. Charles Bend in 1979 — before there was a NICU.
“The unknown is hard sometimes when a kid leaves and you don’t get an update on them,” he said. “It’s nice to see the families you took care of.”
Standing in a room full of glittery stickers, stuffed animals, ice cream and extremely active kids, Lindsey Beaver and Olen Grimes said the reunion event was a good reminder that their tribe expanded by more than just one member when October, soon to turn 6 years old, spent four months in the NICU back in 2018.
“Even though I don’t see the staff all the time anymore, they’re still dear in my heart and I think about them all the time,” Beaver said. “They became family in a way, you know?”
