Our Story

Inspiration

Bryce’s NICU Project was inspired after the founder, Brittany Boet, spent her first Mother’s Day in the NICU with her baby, Bryce. After a perfectly normal pregnancy and delivery there was no sign that anything would go wrong. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Three minutes after Bryce was born his heart stopped beating, he wasn’t breathing, and he had no pulse. He was quickly transferred to the NICU where doctors prepared his father, Brian, for the worst. Shortly after Brittany was rushed to Bryce’s bedside where he was surrounded by screaming nurses and doctors. The common hospital scene out of a movie had become The Boet’s reality.

With a chaplain by their side they stood in shock as they watched their baby fight for his life. In just the knick of time a nurse was able to get a line into Bryce’s flat veins which helped his heart to beat. The next few hours were very “touch and go” as a nurse put it. For three days no one gave them hope for survival but on that third day, Mother’s Day, a doctor told them that there was a chance that he might survive followed by “he will likely be a brain dead vegetable and you will need to think about his quality of life..”. It was also on this day that Brittany was discharged from the hospital and had to go home without her baby. It was a crushing Mother’s Day and not at all how Brittany had dreamed of her first Mother’s Day.

Looking back, Brittany says there was a moment that day that lifted her spirits. A nurse came to her and brought her a scented hand sanitizer in a holder and said that it was a gift from a mom who had previously spent her Mother’s Day in the NICU. Brittany received gifts from her family but she said there was something about that gift that was different. It touched her heart deeply to know that a complete stranger went out of their way on their special day to do something nice for her. Bryce ended up making it out of the hospital a perfectly healthy and happy baby with absolutely zero residual effects of what he endured, an absolute miracle!

As Mother’s Day rolled around the next year, The Boet’s remembered how profoundly the strangers gift had impacted them and they knew they had to go back to do the same. For the past two years they raised money to provide gift bags and lunch to all the parents with babies in the NICU at both Methodist Main and St. Luke’s Hospital. This year they are striving to reach all 11 NICU’s in San Antonio on Mother’s Day as well as every other major holiday. They are also hoping to be able to raise money to buy journals with pens for all the NICU’s to have available as gifts year round for every parent who comes through.

The big dream of Bryce’s NICU Project is to expand nationwide allowing every NICU parent to know that someone is thinking about them, someone knows what it’s like to be in their shoes, and someone cares enough to try to shine some light into their darkness.