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Three years ago, Thomas Friday was born 26 weeks premature and weighed only a pound and 12 ounces.

He spent 15 months in the neonatal intensive-care unit at Children’s Hospital that cares for newborns with severe health problems. For the first two years of his life, Thomas could breathe only through an endotracheal tube.

Sunday, Thomas and his parents, along with about 300 other former patients of the unit, returned to greet their nurses, who became friends and family.

“It’s not sad to us,” said Jill Friday, Thomas’ mom. “We rejoice that they did so much. It really became a second family to us.”

While Thomas had a grim start, he is now on his way to a healthy recovery at home, though he still has a feeding tube for now.

“He is very bright,” Friday said. “He’s already reading; he knows all shapes. It’s weird — even the odd ones like hexagon and octagon.”

The event brought staff and families together in a different setting this time, surrounded by face painting, cupcakes and crafts.

“It’s great to see them; a lot of times you can’t tell they were in the hospital so long,” said Debbie Ferguson, a nurse in the unit for the past 33 years.

The unit cares for an average of 900 babies each year — some from out of state.

The reunion was sponsored in part by the March of Dimes, which is celebrating the eighth anniversary of a program that helps families such as the Fridays cope with having a newborn in intensive care.

The NICU Family Support program started at Children’s in 2002 as the third of its kind in the country. Today, 100 such programs exist in the U.S.

“We greet them with a meal bag and educational material on the terminology they will hear,” said Scott Matthews, director of program services for Colorado’s March of Dimes.

The program also provides resources to those who need a place to stay, translators and emotional support.

Marlena Field-Johnson started volunteering with the March of Dimes after her daughter Lucy spent five months in intensive care.

“We had so many kindnesses here, they did so much that we felt we had to give back,” Field-Johnson said.

Lucy was born with a condition that blocked blood from going back to her heart when veins in one of her lungs collapsed. Lucy had a lung transplant as an infant.

She still uses oxygen and takes medicine regularly but is doing better and will turn 3 years old next month.

Lisa Basquez’s son, Gabriel, had a heart transplant at 13 days old. Gabriel was Colorado’s fifth-youngest patient to have a heart transplant.

Gabriel, wearing a Superman shirt, could not stay still Sunday with all the fun around.

“It was traumatic — you never expect it,” Basquez said. “But it taught us how to live.”

Basquez said she spends a lot of time at the park with her kids.

Friday does the same, often scheduling play dates with other families she met at the hospital.

“We really formed a strong bond. It wasn’t a negative experience. Even though it was hard, they made it bearable,” Friday said.

Yesenia Robles: yrobles@denverpost.com