Families become best friends after meeting in the NICU

    MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- After spending his entire life in the NICU, Cooper may look like a little boy, but his 15-pound weight is huge.

"At 23 weeks, he was a pound ten, so we went through all the ventilators," his mother, Anna Lisa Mahley, said.

That was eight months ago. One month into his stay at the NICU at M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital, he got a neighbor, Raghu, who weighed even less. The parents quickly connected.

"Not that we had it all figured out, but we were kind of past the shock of what does it mean to do this. We had figured out the terminology. What does it mean to go from jet ventilator to oscillator," Mahley said. "I think just walking through with another family who knows what all those hard things mean along the way, you just don't find that many places."

So Cooper's family showed Raghu's the ropes, and Raghu's showed Cooper's support, writing notes that read, "Hi buddy, I am your neighbor and friend, Raghu, just want to say hi. My mom and dad told me we will be all right and one day we will dance."

"I think it was just so special. We are gonna be friends. We are gonna stay in touch," Mahley said.

The boys seemed to bond too.

"Both of them would start beeping so we always said they are buddies from the start, they have to do the same thing."

It's a bond their nurse, Bethie Wolf, got in on too.

"I call them NICU besties. That's what I tell people, Raghu and Cooper, they are NICU besties," she said.

She even made the pair matching Halloween costumes.

"And I was like oh they obviously need to be dinosaur buddies for Halloween," Wolf said.

Now these dynamos have the best thing possible in common.

"Here we are going home just a week apart from each other, which is crazy and just so fun," Mahley said.

Raghu got home to Cottage Grove last week and Cooper is up next.