He wriggles a ruddy hand and squirms. She beams.
He opens his eyes. She kisses his forehead, careful of the tubes taped to his face.
He sleeps. She gazes, cradling his 4-pound, 14-ounce body in her arms.
Stephanie Barron collects these moments as she sits an arm’s length from a plastic incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit at Shands Children’s Hospital at UF. Each memory with her baby boy Brody — changing his tiny diaper, tucking him into her shirt for “kangaroo care” — is precious to her. She almost didn’t have many memories of him at all.