Observing someone perform their duties from the wrong side of the bed can be subtly disorienting. In the neonatal intensive care unit at Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo, Caitlin Vaccaro has been the soothing presence that other parents sought for ten years. She has monitored incredibly tiny lungs, consoled strangers, and discovered the language that families use when they are afraid but are still unsure of it. She became one of them this past week.
Caleb, her son, was born at 34 weeks. six weeks ahead of schedule. According to Vaccaro, her initial response was more of a dark joke about her commute than fear. She told WGRZ, “I’m going to have to spend even more time with my co-workers,” with the slightly worn humor of someone who has worked too many nights to be dramatic about anything.
It’s difficult to ignore the story’s proliferation. Buffalo isn’t a big city, and Sisters Hospital has a reputation that has been developed over many years rather than through press releases. However, the comments that are accumulating beneath the local news clips point to more than just sentimental circulation. Notes are being left for her by those who lost infants in that unit. Vaccaro had taken care of her daughter prior to her death, according to one commenter. Another mentioned twins who are now nearly four years old and were born at 27 weeks. The thread reads more like a community discreetly checking in on one of its own than it does like a viral moment.
The dynamics within the unit appear genuinely peculiar. Caleb was crying, and Vaccaro needed to sleep, so a friend of hers recently came into the room to get him. Not in the moment. Not in a formal transfer. simply entered and took the infant in his arms. Vaccaro remarked, “Not anyone would just do that,” which is the kind of statement you make after spending enough time with worn-out parents to understand how uncommon it is.
By most accounts, the medical aspect is doing as well as it can. Caleb’s feeding habits, weight gain, and blood sugar levels are all being monitored by the doctors, who use this unromantic checklist to decide when premature babies can go home. According to his parents, he’s meeting expectations. It’s a small mercy that there isn’t any drama there.
But what’s more difficult is what persists. According to Vaccaro, this experience has changed her perspective on the parents she has taken care of over the previous ten years. It’s worth stopping to consider that admission. She had been doing a job well for ten years, and during that time she had somehow absorbed an understanding of the work that was, as it turned out, still lacking. Similar remarks were made by her husband, who claimed that being a parent inside the unit gave him a level of appreciation for the staff that he hadn’t quite attained from the outside.
Stories like this have a propensity to aim for neat lessons. That is resisted by this one. Caleb’s nurses are doing nothing that they don’t already do for all of the babies on the unit. Vaccaro is receiving the kind of care that, in a perfect world, all parents in a NICU would receive. She is aware of their names, which makes a difference. She is aware of how they sound at three in the morning. When things get serious, she knows who becomes quiet. Although the familiarity is consoling, it also serves as a reminder of what most families lack and what the work, when done well, attempts to provide in any case. Roughly one in ten American babies are born prematurely, according to a March of Dimes report. This means that thousands of families are currently sitting in some variation of this room without knowing a single member of the staff. Beneath the warm story is a quieter one.
Caleb is anticipated to return home shortly. Eventually, Vaccaro will return to his job. The odd loop will end. Watching the interviews, however, gives you the impression that something has changed that won’t go back.