Colorado state senator wants to expand family leave to include parents of babies in neonatal
Colorado state Sen. Jeff Bridges celebrated his son's first birthday with not only cake but a bill that he says will help all parents whose kids are born prematurely.
Kit Bridges was born two months early and weighed just 2 pounds.
"You have this image that you're going to hold your baby in arms when he's born," said Bridges' wife Rie.
It would be a week before the couple could hold their son. What should have been the happiest time of their lives, the state lawmaker says, was the scariest.
"To be holding your kid and then all of sudden the alarm goes off because he's stopped breathing," he said.
Every day was an unknown.
"He would seem to turn a corner and then kind of regress and we had to make hard decisions around like should we try a shot of steroids," said Rie.
She says parents' employers also have to make hard decisions.
"Your employer very reasonably says 'Well can you give me some sense of planning' and it's very painful to say 'I really can't because I don't know how this is going to go,'" she said.
But Rie says they couldn't go to work while their son fought for his life.
"Trying to be mentally in two places at once or or physically in two places at once is so painful," she said.
Their employers allowed them to work remotely. The neonatal unit became their new home and Sarah Wiedemann and Todd Macey became their new family. Their son Sagan was born at 28 weeks.
Rie recalled how they met: "We'd been in NICU maybe a week and there was a gift dropped off in our room with a note and it said 'We're Sarah and Todd, we're your nextdoor neighbors and we're several weeks ahead of you on this journey.'"
Wiedemann and Macey say they understood what the Bridges were going through.
"I know how scary it is when you first come in," said Wiedemann.
Wiedemann and Macey were also lucky enough to work remotely. Macey says they weathered the highs and lows together.
"Unless you're sort of going through it yourself, you can't really know. So it's really nice to have that parent support group."
But other parents weren't so lucky.
The senator says it's hard enough for parents who have a child in a neonatal unit, leaving them to go back to work makes it harder still.
"That leaves the families that are going through this to make those hard decisions," he said.
Many parents, he says, have to choose between using their parental leave while their baby is hospitalized or when the baby comes home. He plans to make it easier for them with a bill that would allow parents whose babies are born prematurely to use family leave while their babies are hospitalized and save parental leave for when they go home.
"It solves the problem for employers, for parents and for the kids who need their parents there," Jeff said.
He recently paid tribute to Kit's medical team on the Colorado Senate floor. And he is now paying it forward.
"I think this was so painful for us that knowing that there's something that we can do to make it less painful on other families going through this," he said.
Rose Medical Center neonatologist Dr. Todd West says the bill will not only benefit parents but also their babies. He says giving parents time to be with their babies and hold them helps those babies grow strong and go home.
Jeff says he and his wife were grateful to have their parental leave when Kit came home because he was still on oxygen.
He says because employees and employers already pay into Colorado's Family and Medical Leave program, the bill won't add to employers' costs.