Shreveport NICU hosts annual reunion for tiny survivors

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Every year, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at CHRISTUS Health in Shreveport throws a party like no other. It’s a reunion for the tiniest patients who beat the odds, the babies who once fought for their first breath, now coming back bigger, stronger, and walking through the same doors that once saved their lives. One of those former patients was FOX 33 Anchor Ya’Lisha Gatewood.

“This story hits close to home for me too. Thirty-one years ago, I was one of these babies. I was born 3 lbs and 11 1/2 ounces, and both my mom and I were fighting for our lives. It’s stories like mine and like the families I met this week that keep nurses coming back year after year,” Ya’Lisha Gatewood said. It’s a bond that starts on day one and for some, it lasts decades.”

“Means a lot to me to see where they started, especially our micro preemies,” said NICU nurse Meliah Mitchell. “To see the beginning, and to see them growing, taking bottles, taking full feeds. That means a lot, because we put so much effort and spend so much time with these families.”

For NICU mom Shelby Black, the bond with the unit’s staff never faded.

“It was just their love and caring for him and for us too,” Black said. “They truly treat you like you’re their own family.”

“When I started, it was not something I thought I wanted to do, and then I fell in love with it the second I got here,” said NICU nurse Maddie Mouser. “Being able to watch those babies start off as 500-gram babies and being so sick, to all of a sudden we’re bottle-feeding, we’re swaddled, we’re in clothes, we’re getting to go home and we look like a normal, healthy baby, because we are a normal, healthy baby at that point.”

Retired neonatologist Dr. Julia Elrod believes it’s more than a career choice.

“People are just meant to do that when they go into neonatology,” Dr. Elrod said. “I think the field chooses you instead of you really choosing it.”

I don’t remember any of it. But I know it shaped who I’ve become. I never imagined I’d grow up to tell stories like this one stories that show some of the biggest fighters come in the smallest packages,” said Ya’Lisha Gatewood said.

“You can literally do anything you want to do, no matter what,” Black said. “Don’t let that stop you.”

The NICU reunion happens every year. It’s literal proof that the smallest patients often grow up to be the biggest fighters.

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