These donated stockings are comforting families with newborns in intensive care

Chelsea Allen remembers well the stress and anxiety of seeing her son in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, B.C.

But she also recalls how much better she felt when she received a hand-knitted stocking filled with donated items for her and her newborn Will, who arrived three months premature via emergency caesarean section.

The stocking gift, part of a community initiative called the Kamloops NICU Empathy Movement, made a huge difference, Allen said.

"It was such a ray of sunshine during such a dark, uncertain time for our family," she told CBC about her experience in late 2019, when she was also worried about her husband, Bill Shelley, who had broken 17 bones in a car accident a few weeks earlier.

"It was just something that put a smile on my face when there wasn't a whole lot to smile about."

The Kamloops NICU Empathy Movement, started by another local mom, Melinda Baxter, is now in its fifth year, and the stockings are continuing to bring a bit of comfort to new parents who are dealing with difficult circumstances.

NICU nurses at the hospital started giving out this year's stockings — 15 in total — on Dec. 8.

The stocking Allen received in 2019 contained booties and other clothing items for Will, as well as tea and a journal for her. It also contained snacks, a coffee mug and a gift certificate for a photo shoot.

She found the stocking gift so uplifting that she got involved the next year and has been donating items ever since.

"Myself and my family have contributed to the stockings the best we can. It's just a really nice thing to do for people who are going through such a really awful time," said Allen, whose son was in the intensive care unit for about a month but is "wonderful" now.

"You would never be able to tell that he was so premature," Allen said. "He's a smart, happy little guy."

'Connection and community'

Baxter says she started the Kamloops NICU Empathy Movement in 2018 and has since filled 95 stockings for NICU families.

The stockings are knitted each year by the same Kamloops woman — who prefers to remain unnamed — and Baxter fills them with items donated from the community.

She also includes a letter "rooted in empathy, with the intent of holding space for them and their challenging journey."

Baxter says the idea for the stockings came out of an act of kindness she experienced while her daughter, Orianna, was in Royal Inland's NICU after being born six weeks premature in December 2017.

Another family in the unit gave everyone Christmas ornaments that said "Preemie Power 2017," and that inspired Baxter to do something of her own.

"No one goes in planning to have a baby in the NICU," Baxter said on CBC's Daybreak Kamloops. "So, feeling that connection and community was so powerful."

Baxter brings the stockings to the Royal Inland NICU each year on Orianna's birthday, or as close to it as possible. The stockings sit in quarantine for about a week before staff hand them out.

Baxter said the initiative has become an important part of her own life and healing journey.

"It sure feels great to be a part of it," she said. "And to deliver them is such a beautiful experience."