This baby celebrated his last day in the NICU with a touching graduation ceremony
On Bodie Blodgett's last day in the neonatal intensive care unit at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, he was dressed in an adorable cap and gown for his graduation ceremony, celebrating his last day in the NICU.
Bodie was carried through the hallway of the hospital surrounded by his doctors, nurses and many others from the hospital staff as "Pomp and Circumstance" played.
"It was really special," Bodie's father, Todd Blodgett, told "GMA." "We will look back on this day for many years to come."
The cleaning staff, different therapists, secretaries at the front desk and other hospital employees lined the hallways to join the celebration.
"We sometimes forget that the families who are at the bedside build relationships with not just the nurses, but also people around the hospital," Dr. Melissa Riley, associate medical director of the NICU at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, told "GMA."
"Everybody there is kind and there for you," Bodie's mother Nicole Blodgett shared with "GMA." "It feels like I left another family behind there. You can never have enough love for your child, so to have this was incredible."
The hospital's NICU has been hosting graduation ceremonies for the past six months as a celebration for the families and hospital staff that helped the babies who have been in the unit the longest.
"You see the tiny little baby who has such incredible resistance, but it might not have started that way," Riley said. "If you take all of the medical assistance and technology, all of those things add up to give you the healthiest, strongest baby."
Nicole shared that she felt "relieved" that in 60 days, Bodie went from not being able to breathe on his own to being able to be taken home.
"[The ceremony] felt bittersweet," she said. "I'm leaving my support team that kept him alive, but I can't wait to be home and be a mom to him."
