1) Julia S

2) Samantha Bachand

3) Heather Shields

For those that didn’t win, for the next 24 hours you can get $4 off a NICU Staff shirt at http://www.itsapreemiething.com/store.  You can go to Adult Shirts, then NICU STAFF and enter in LOVE A NURSE at checkout.  You can use print to order, but only on the following sayings:  “Little Things Matter in the NICU”, “I work with small miracles daily”, “NICU Nurses hold the future in the palms of their hands.”  I have most sizes/colors in stock size S-XL for print to order.  If you need XXL or more it will be a pre-order!

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So I’m getting a little bit of a late start since it’s WED evening, but can’t let this week go by without having a giveaway for the Nurses that have meant so much to many of us!   While I can’t say they were all perfect, what I can say is that I realized today how many of the nurses I’ve remained friends with, and others that still make me smile if I see them while we’re at the hospital.

Both my mother and father passed away in 2005, and my mother and I were extremely close, so when Spencer arrived early it hit harder because I wasn’t able to ask my mom questions about me as a baby, or to have her to vent to.  What I didn’t know is that one of the first NICU nurses I met, Mary, would come to be that “mom” for me in the NICU.  Strangely enough, my mother’s name was Mary as well.  Mary taught me many things over my 64 days in the NICU, and took pictures of me giving Spencer his first bath, and calmly reassured me that yes, he floated, his bones weighed that of a bird, why wouldn’t he float…  She was my voice of reason, my comfort and I looked forward to days she was on duty.

Although I came to love many of the other nurses, I had a connection to Mary that still lives on, and she’s been over to see Spencer and I several times, and we’ve been to her house as well.  Without my own “Mother Mary” I was blessed to have “Mother Mary Part Deux.”

So I think it’s only fitting that we have a giveaway for your favorite nurse, or PLEASE NICU NURSES, register for yourselves!!

THREE lucky winners will be drawn for a shirt of their (or their nurses) choice (it was one, but the posts are so good I thought 3 would be better).  Winner will be chosen by a random winner app from Word Press.  Contest will be open until 9pm PST on Sunday, 15 May 2011.  Winner will be announced Monday, 16 May 2011 on our FB page and posted here!

To enter:

1.  Must be a fan of It’s a Preemie Thing http://www.facebook.com/itsapreemiething

2.  If you’re a NICU Nurse, just tell me how long you’ve been doing it, what you love most about the job, and where you work.

3.  If you’re nominating a Nurse, tell me what you loved most about him/her and what hospital they work at.

For extra entries:

4.  Tweet the following:  #NICU Nurse shirt #giveaway from @apreemiething.  Enter at http://tinyurl.com/44lexk7
and leave a separate comment telling me what your twitter name and that you tweeted. (Can tweet daily for 1 entry a day)

5.  Share on your FB page about the giveaway and leave a separate comment that you’ve done so!

My primary Mary at our house getting some more Spencer time!