Lily Tomlinson – NICU Graduate

Giving birth to a premature baby is stressful. It’s stressful when, after your premature baby is born, she’s cared for in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). And it’s REALLY STRESSFUL when your baby is cared for in a NICU while a worldwide pandemic breaks out.

Joseph and Jessica Tomlinson experienced all these stresses, and right now they couldn’t be happier.

Joseph and Jessica’s daughter Lily came into this world on February 9, all of two pounds and ten ounces. She was delivered in the Henry Mayo Center for Women and Newborns at 27 weeks and five days, and immediately after birth was taken to Henry Mayo’s Kim and Steven Ullman Neonatal Intensive Care unit, where she would be a patient for 60 days.

During this time, as the COVD-19 pandemic grew, Henry Mayo’s visitor policy became more and more restricted, to the point where only Joseph and Jessica could visit Lily, and then only one at a time.

The Tomlinson’s understood that the restrictions were for the protection of Lily and the other patients at Henry Mayo, and they are grateful the hospital implemented these policies to protect their baby.

At the same time, they marveled at the care provided to Lily by the henry Mayo NICU staff and by the Kim and Steven Ullman medical director Julia Mizener, MD, a neonatal medicine specialist. “We are so grateful to the NICU staff and Dr. Mizener for the care they provided to Lily. We had complete confidence in them during what was a very stressful time,” said the Tomlinsons. “We can say with 100% confidence that Lily was safe in their care.”

On April 8 Lily went home. She’s now six months old, thriving, and wildly popular with her grandparents.