In 2025, our son was born at 30 weeks gestation, with a complex congenital heart defect.
He spent 103 days in the NICU and CICU at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. Every day brought new vocabulary, new medications, new acronyms, and new faces. We learned fast, advocated constantly and figured out how to keep it all together one day at a time.
Throughout our stay, we heard many of our son's nurses refer to their babies as "Peanut," which also happened to be the name of our Golden Retriever who waited patiently at home to meet her brother for 103 days.
Friends of Peanut is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Every dollar goes directly to building free resources and supporting NICU families. We built this because we've been there, and because every family walking into a NICU deserves to feel a little more prepared and a little less alone.