Jul 21, 2026 · 21 min · 11 segments
*This wasn’t the first time I had been there; holding a nameless baby boy in the labor and delivery ward of St Joe’s Hospital. It wouldn’t be the last either...* A story of legacy, as told through…
I got a name.
Time gets lost in the NICU.
The dim lit warm atmosphere suggests a constant dusk.
A steady chirping of machines lulls you into a dream.
The cry of a newborn pulls you right back to the cold linoleum floor and sterile air of the hospital.
We were headed for a hot summer that June, outside the sun beat down.
We only caught a brief glimpse of the change in seasons on our short walk from car to hospital, hospital to car, back and forth through night and day and in and out of weeks with our baby in the NICU.
Teddy was hooked up to a mess of wires with a feeding tube going up his nose and a tiny pulse ox glowing red clamped over his foot.
Every so often, a wire would get caught on our clothing or on the chair, and the beeping would intensify, signaling a NICU nurse to rush over and reaffix a displaced monitor.
The name card on the clear plastic bassinet read Baby Hollowell.
He didn't have his name yet.
Better to let him breathe in the outside world for a while so he could tell us who he is.
He would have to carry that name through life.
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I got a name.
Time gets lost in the NICU.
The dim lit warm atmosphere suggests a constant dusk.
A steady chirping of machines lulls you into a dream.
The cry of a newborn pulls you right back to the cold linoleum floor and sterile air of the hospital.
We were headed for a hot summer that June, outside the sun beat down.
We only caught a brief glimpse of the change in seasons on our short walk from car to hospital, hospital to car, back and forth through night and day and in and out of weeks with our baby in the NICU.
Teddy was hooked up to a mess of wires with a feeding tube going up his nose and a tiny pulse ox glowing red clamped over his foot.
Every so often, a wire would get caught on our clothing or on the chair, and the beeping would intensify, signaling a NICU nurse to rush over and reaffix a displaced monitor.
The name card on the clear plastic bassinet read Baby Hollowell.
He didn't have his name yet.
Better to let him breathe in the outside world for a while so he could tell us who he is.
He would have to carry that name through life.