Yitzchok Davidovich
Yitzchok DavidovichVaad HaRabbanim

Beeps. Buzzing. Flashing lights.

The NICU is a dark cocoon of chaos. A small universe of tension and fear and love and hope. Any parent who has had a baby under care in the newborn intensive care unit knows about the complex entanglement of feelings that grow with every passing day as they hope for their baby to regain health, a cacophony of helplessness and fear and yearning and love.

When a parent has a baby in the NICU, it’s hard to describe the pain. After nine months of waiting for a child, then worrying whether this tiny little human that they love so much will make it…It’s a challenge that is hard to describe. Those who have been there can all agree on one thing: They need more support. And mother of five Fraidy Dovidovich can attest to that:

“What feels like forever ago but was really yesterday, I unexpectedly went into labor almost two months early,” she shared several days ago.

“Just a few hours later, I gave birth to our fifth child. Our tiny little preemie is now on oxygen in Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, fighting for his health. We are sleep-deprived, scared, and so overwhelmed.”

Fraidy explains that she has always had difficult pregnancies, but that thankfully she always returned home a couple of days after giving birth with a healthy newborn baby. Now that her fifth child is fighting for his life in the NICU, she understands that she never realized just how lucky she was. But the Israeli-born Fraidy Dovidovich is not just losing sleep over her little preemie son. She’s constantly worrying about her four other kids at home as well.

“We don’t know how we are going to manage being there for him over the next few months and for our kids at home as well, or how in the world we are going to pay our bills without me working, or if our sweet little baby is even going to make it. We have four other kids at home, one who has just recovered from a cleft lip surgery and we simply don’t know how we are going to do this.”

Realizing that they will not survive what they are going through on their own, Fraidy and her husband Dovid have courageously created a crowdfunding page, where they attempt to explain to complete strangers why they need support in their fight for their son’s life.

“Our tiny preemie is on oxygen...If you are reading this, please help us. We need support to survive this as a family.”

Where or not you’ve had a similar experience, you can spread hope and light to those who are still struggling in the dark. To help a struggling family whose child is fighting for his life in the NICU, click here.