Developmental Observer  •  2020  •  25  

Julia Giesen, NIDCAP Professional-in-Training, 
Edmonton, Canada

P O E T ' S  C O R N E R

Today you showed me something new
Could it possibly be true?

That when you were born you started out whole
All systems working as is our goal

To have you move between your states
With smooth transitions and no mistakes

No interruptions to get you there
And nothing breaking the moment where

You grow and heal and find good rest
Where your little brain can do its best

And here we stand at a fork in the road
An opportunity to lay down the code

For how you will do in the years ahead
Will we be with you or will you lay in your bed

Cycling through trying to breathe on your own
Your little struggles not being known

Will you continue to be so strong?
Or will we pick the road that is long?

On our watch

“On Our Watch”

DOI: 10.14434/do.v13i2.31222

Hello from the Edmonton NIDCAP Training Centre  
Canada, ENTCC for short! I am Julia Giesen and I had 

the pleasure to meet many of you in the world-spanning  
NIDCAP community at the NIDCAP Trainers Meeting in our 
fair city in 2017. That meeting inspired me to pursue NIDCAP 
training which I started the following spring under the direction 
of our trainer Juzer Tyebkhan. Initially I found the observations 
overwhelming. Each observation opened my eyes to something 
I had never seen before, much of it hard to stomach. Could our 
little patients really be having such a difficult time, so often, 
without us being aware? What must that feel like? And what 
does that do to them over time? I struggled to get down in 
words what I was seeing, to describe it accurately and in a way 
that families would easily understand. I spent hours picking out 
the words for my reports and the days were long. At the end of 
the day after hours at the keyboard the last thing I wanted to 
do was to fill out another form for the Journal Page. I couldn’t 
think straight anymore and it felt too raw to reflect on it right 
away. I took the evening to let things settle in, poured myself a 
cup of tea, grabbed pen and paper, and wrote. I tried a number 
of reflection styles but what resonated most for me was to write 

freely and what ensued were a series of poems. I am sharing some 
of my poems with you, hoping they help you see what I saw on 
this great NIDCAP journey.

This first poem is from an observation in January 2019 on 
a little boy named Alex. Alex was born at 25 weeks and was six 
days old. He showed me that the protective effect of the womb 
may indeed last for several days after birth before beginning to 
fade as we encounter life on our own.