New Jersey NICU nurse takes same photo with father and son, both preemies, 30 years apart

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (WJLA) -- History repeated itself last week as a NICU nurse at a New Jersey hospital recreated a decades-old photo of herself and a premature baby she once cared for.

Renata Freydin says her sonZayne was born 10 weeks early at St. Peter's University Hospital. Her fiance, David Caldwell, was also born prematurely in 1986, about six weeks early, at the same hospital.

"Last Sunday, he dug out his baby book to show me," Freydin wrote in a Facebook post. "As I was looking through, I came across a picture of him as a baby and a lady holding him. I knew that lady!! I immediately asked him who she was and he confirmed that she was the nurse who took care of him during his stay in the NICU and his mom loved her so much that she needed a photo of the two of them on the day he was discharged! Well, the reason I know her is because I swore she was the nurse that had been taking care of our baby boy for the past three days!"

They decided to take the picture to the hospital, where other nurses confirmed it was the same nurse, Lissa McGowan. On Valentine's Day, they tracked her down and recreated the photo with their son.

"The past 2 weeks have been filled with worries and uncertainty but we can breathe easy knowing my lil nuggets nurse is the same one that helped the man I love when he was in the same situation," she wrote.