See for yourself

We saw a picture of sweet friend the other day; she was wearing a mask, but you could still tell she was smiling. Her eyes light up when she smiles, and no mask is going to hide that lovely feature.

But imagine being a newborn baby and never having seen the faces of the woman and man who just gave you life!

Aria Mason-Folse gave birth recently, and to add another layer of stress atop pregnancy during a pandemic, she had to deal with preeclampsia along the way.  That's a fairly common, but nonetheless dangerous, complication during pregnancy.

So when Mason-Folse and her husband Henri finally got see Amara Mason-Folse, the preemie weighed just one pound, eight ounces. And they didn't get to see the baby for three days, which must have felt like three decades. Newborn Amara was taken directly after birth to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center in New Orleans.

 So Ms Mason-Folse began to sing when they were united.

"I was wondering if she'd know I was her mom, we didn't have that moment at delivery," she explained. "She took my hand once I started and her pulse evened out, other vital signs came up instantly. That meant the world to me. Having the ability to connect with her this way has been its little ray of sunshine through all of this."

And another wrinkle: COVID-19 means infection risks, meaning that face masks were required, and only one parent at a time could visit. The new parents worried that little Amara might be stunted in terms of social cue development and non-verbal communication skills.  That stuff starts early, you know.

So a speech therapist at the hospital mentioned that people at the hospital were making clear masks for those who work with patients with hearing deficits.
The Mason-Folses put on the masks, and their daughter perked up at the sight of her parents' faces!

"You can see her watching our mouths, especially when I was singing to her," Mason-Folse says. "She likes the silly faces we make too. I feel excited by that, that she is responding so well to it. It's really reassuring that we made the right decision."

The baby is still in the NICU as her lungs mature, and she will be home soon, and she will be with the parents she has gotten to see all along, because someone had a good idea!