At the cusp of adulthood, youngster’s handmade blankets comfort parents, newborns
Twelve-year-old Jonah Retin, center, made blankets for babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.
About to turn 13, Jonah Retin stands in a hospital room surrounded by prematurely born babies, a scene similar to right after his own birth.
He weighed just over a pound when he was delivered, but survived and is now readying to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah.
To help parents who went through the same challenges as his mom and dad, Jonah strolled through the neonatal intensive care unit and Glendale Adventist Medical Center on Tuesday and handed out homemade blankets.
NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with what’s going on in the 818 >>
“We went to fabric stores like Joanne’s and we picked fabrics that we thought were going to be baby friendly,” he said. “We did Minions and toy trucks.”
Jonah had to do a good community deed in honor of his Bar Mitzvah so he got the idea to craft 35 blankets with help from his family and friends.
His dad, Terry Retin, said Jonah spent 105 days in the hospital before he was healthy enough to go home. Retin recalls someone giving him a homemade blanket back then and passed the idea onto his son.
When Jonah was in an infant incubator, he didn’t really feel like his own son until placing the blanket over him, Retin said.
“We walked in there and saw the colorful blanket on top, it really personalized it, it gave a little bit of normality to the fact we had a son being born,” he said.
Jonah now attends Hale Charter Academy in Woodland Hills, where he lives with his parents and little sister.
He hand-delivered three blankets, including one to Matthew Sullentrop of Northridge, who’s daughter Maya has been at Glendale Adventist for over a week.
When [parents] hear it from another parent, when they see kids that have grown up and they’ve made it, it gives them hope.
— Randy Miller, nurse manager of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Glendale Adventist Medical Center
Sullentrop said he appreciated the gesture and that it was comforting to see a former preemie all grown up.
“It’s good to see survivors who say everything is going to be OK,” he said.
Jonah’s great aunt, Randy Miller, made the blanket handout possible because she’s the nurse manager of Glendale Adventist’s intensive care unit for newborns.
She said for parents with premature babies, it means a lot to meet a healthy teenager who got a rough start as well.
“When [parents] hear it from another parent, when they see kids that have grown up and they’ve made it, it gives them hope,” Miller said.
Jonah says he’s been told about his premature birth as long as he can remember and likes to share the story of beating the odds. Despite coming off a little smaller at the starting line than other kids, he doesn’t think it’s made him any different.
“I overcame the challenges that I developed as a preemie baby and throughout the years I’ve overcome those challenges and have been healthy, just like everyone else,” Jonah said.
--
Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com
Twitter: @ArinMikailian
