It’s a place worried new parents would rather not have had to visit, but one they will remember with gratitude forever after.

Since 1980, the Hilda C. Rosen Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center has cared for more than 5,500 sick and premature newborns. From three rooms, the NICU, the only one north of Portland, has grown to include six rooms, 23 beds, about 40 nurses, a nurse practitioner, two neonatologists and other supporting physicians. Of the 500 or so babies who arrive there each year, most will go home, no longer in need of the extraordinary care they received in those anxious first weeks and months of life. As the children grow stronger, their parents will look back fondly on the special place with its hushed atmosphere, low lighting, wooden rocking chairs and compassionate staff who once nurtured their tiny, frail children to health.

Many of the parents and their kids will return to the hospital on May 1 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the unit known informally as the “Nick You.” Pat Martin is looking forward to the day, as she does each year when the reunion rolls around and EMMC’s Mason Auditorium fills with the unit’s graduates and their parents. As one of the four people who formed the unit and have worked there since, Martin, a charge nurse, has touched the lives of each of those 5,500 patients in some remarkable ways.

“And it still amazes me to look at those little babies, just 11/2 to 2 pounds, kicking their feet,” she said.

The original unit was established in the late 1970s, with about a dozen beds devoted to both pediatric and neonatal intensive care. In 1980, the hospital moved its maternity wing to the seventh floor along with neonatal services, which had been a part of pediatrics. Martin had to decide whether to stay in pediatric nursing or join the fledgling neonatal unit upstairs.

“It was a tough choice because I enjoyed working with youngsters and teens,” she said. “But I just loved the little babies, so I decided to do that. I’ve never regretted my choice for a moment.”

In one busy weekend, Martin, with nurses Marcia Biggane, Sue Wilson and a secretary, Judy Lockhart, assembled a small team and moved the medical equipment to the three new rooms on the seventh floor, followed by the babies in their cribs and heated incubators.

“We started with 12 babies, and now we have 23 of them in six rooms,” said Martin, a nurse for more than 30 years. “We do have to keep our voices down, and use low light or no light, in some cases, because some babies are so immature they can’t tolerate any light or noise.”

At the NICU’s spirited reunions, which draw about 200 people, Martin and the staff don’t recognize the growing, energetic children they once cared for when they were tiny and sick.

“But we recognize many parents, because their babies might have been with us for three to six months,” Martin said. “We immediately make friendships with the parents, and it’s great fun when they come back. The overwhelming number want to show off their babies and talk about where they are medically and the milestones they’ve made. They still have strong feelings and emotions about that time.”

So do I, the proud parent of once sickly little grad who now is a lovely 20-year-old woman bent on changing the world one day. So happy 25th anniversary, Nick You, and thanks for the memories.