When you’re pregnant and imagine holding your baby in your arms for the first time, the picture-perfect moment you envision doesn’t include incubators, IVs or breathing tubes. Yet for many moms, that becomes the reality, and those first few days or months of your baby’s life look completely different than you expected. What's it like to be a NICU parent? What do you need to know about the transition home from the hospital? And what advice would experienced NICU moms give to parents in the thick of it?

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