When the Beginning Looks Different: The NICU Journey
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Episode Notes
In this episode of Perinatal & Reproductive Perspectives, host Becky Morrison Gleed speaks with Tami Gaines, a mother of four, author, and advocate for NICU parents, about her experience delivering twins at 25 weeks gestation and navigating an extended NICU and PICU journey as a newly single parent.
Tami shares how compounded stressors—including divorce, prolonged hospitalized bed rest, emergency cesarean delivery, severe maternal infection, and multiple family losses—shaped her experience of pregnancy, birth, and early parenting. She reflects on the emotional and ethical complexity of NICU care, including separation after birth, medical decision-making under uncertainty, community dynamics within an open NICU environment, and conversations with other parents facing end-of-life decisions for their infants.
Throughout the conversation, Tami describes the personal framework she developed to cope during prolonged uncertainty—what she later articulated as the “PEACE” principles—and how intentional self-regulation, community connection, and meaning-making supported her through months of crisis. The episode offers a non-prescriptive, experience-based perspective on resilience, grief, faith, and caregiving within high-acuity perinatal settings.
Topics Discussed
Emergency cesarean birth at 25 weeks and immediate neonatal separation
Hospitalized bed rest and the impact of chronic stress during pregnancy
Navigating NICU and PICU care over many months
Open-bay NICU environments and informal parent community dynamics
Ethical and emotional dimensions of neonatal medical decision-making
Supporting oneself while parenting children at home and hospitalized infants
The role of intention, energy regulation, and breathwork during crisis
Maternal autonomy, consent, and experiences of perceived medical betrayal
Grief, loss, and meaning-making alongside neonatal survival
Long-term developmental outcomes and accepting early intervention support
Guest information
Tami Gaines is a mother of four, business strategist, author, and long-time advocate for NICU parents. Following the premature birth of her twins at 25 weeks gestation, she spent more than a year navigating NICU and PICU care while parenting two older children at home. Drawing from that experience, she later authored Preemie Parents: 26 Ways to Grow With Your Premature Baby and now speaks regularly to NICU families about coping with uncertainty, caregiver resilience, and finding meaning during prolonged medical crises.