“All of these parents are just so strong”

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

When Audrey Lee speaks to the parents of a preemie or a fragile NICU baby, she recognizes the fear in their eyes. The uncertainty. The grief.

Lee is a physician assistant in both neonatal intensive care units at Riley Hospital for Children, caring for babies in the Simon Family Tower and the Maternity Tower.

But she is also the mom of four NICU grads, now ages 6 to 17. All were born in the Washington, D.C., area, where Lee worked for a decade in HIV research and biodefense as a government contractor for the military.

It was during one of those NICU stays with her third child when a neonatologist suggested she might want to try a new career in medicine.

“I was not keen on it,” she said, because it meant more school, but she filed it in the back of her mind with a promise that she would think about it again when her third child turned 1.

“I applied then and haven’t looked back,” Lee said before reporting for a shift in the NICU in the Maternity Tower last month.

It wasn’t easy. She had completed the first year of her PA schooling when her third child suffered renal failure, and she left school to care for him. She went on to restart and finish her PA program just as she and her husband learned she was pregnant with their fourth child, despite using birth control.

“Nobody was more surprised than me,” she said.

That baby was her tiniest, a micro preemie.

She had set her sights on a NICU PA residency program at Riley, but spent a year working in an urgent care center during COVID before she and her husband decided the time was right to make the move to Indianapolis.

That was four years ago, and Lee is confident she made the right decision.

After going through so much with her own babies, all of whom are doing well today, she is often asked if it’s hard to work in a NICU every day.

“Actually, it’s been very healing for me because I’ve been able to walk this journey with my patients and their families, and it’s been a good thing,” she said. “No regrets.”

“For me,” she continued, “having been in the same room in those situations, I feel for these parents in a different way. Nothing ever prepares you for seeing your child on life support, on a ventilator.”

She thinks back to when she was a first-time NICU mom, and it was like learning a new language, she said.

“I had no idea what anybody was talking about. You’re in a very scary situation, and everything seems out of control. You feel so helpless as a parent, and you’re trying to advocate the best you can in an environment that’s foreign.”

Coming from that perspective, she does her best to remove some of the mystery of medicine and calm parents’ fears or just lend an ear when they need to talk.

She knows that she is blessed to have been able to take her children home from the NICU.

“Not everyone is so lucky,” she said.

But for the ones who are, she wants them to know there is life after the NICU.

“It might not be what you envisioned, but life can be very beautiful outside these walls,” she said. “All of these parents are just so strong. I had to dig deep to find my strength, so when I see these parents advocating for their kids, it makes me proud of them.”

Part of her time in the NICU is spent as a liaison with the Riley Early Years Program, which follows babies’ developmental progress outside the NICU.

“All of us really care for these babies,” she said. “We get attached, and we want the best for these kiddos. It makes my heart happy to see them outside of the NICU thriving.”

It makes all the hard days and nights worthwhile, she said.

“The NICU is a hard place to work emotionally. We deal with a lot of loss, but we all have the desire to be here because we love these babies and families, and we want to see them through this.”

Lee needed her own support in the past two years as she was treated for breast cancer at IU Health Simon Cancer Center. She was diagnosed with the disease at her first mammogram when she turned 40.

She was stunned and scared. Her first thought was for her kids.

“I want to see them grow up. I’m fighting to be here for them and for my husband.”

The experience has taught her a lot about herself, including learning when to acknowledge she can’t do something.

“That’s been hard,” she said. “There were some days I cried myself to sleep and couldn’t get off the couch. My oncologist (Dr. Kathy Miller) is phenomenal. I can’t say enough about her. She helped me prioritize things so I can be my best self for work and home.”

Lee finished treatment last year and returned to work on a part-time basis but hopes to be cleared for a full-time schedule in October.

Photos submitted and by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org