I never thought my first pregnancy would be like this, I never thought prematurity was an option in my world. That it was something that never would happen to me, it happened to other people, as cold as that sounds its how most people are with bad things, that we are never going to experience the bad things in life only good because we are good people. I never had a complicated pregnancy, I am a bigger girl so I started eating better and walking more. I lost weight during my pregnancy which my doctors monitored as healthy because of my starting weight, at month 4 my family doctor referred me to my OBG-YN and he was so awesome, so nice and made me feel so comfortable during the whole thing. He did my first pelvic and told me that my cervix looked funny. I remember those words because I made the joke that it matched me perfectly, then I asked what that meant. He told me not to worry and to just abstain from sex until after the baby was born. In the mean time I had 2 ultra sounds and no one saw anything wrong. My baby was growing perfectly and they saw nothing wrong, he was active and happy.

At 5 and half months I got up at 1 am to go pee and there was a bit of blood, call me paranoid but I woke my husband up and we went to the hospital to get it checked out. We went from emergency to labour and delivery observation, we sat there for 15 hours. They had me on a monitor and my baby was fine and active and happy as they could tell. Then when I got my ultrasound they told me there was no fluid. My water had broke but I was not in active labour. They gave me steroid shots and antibiotics and I was put on hospital bed rest for as long as they could keep baby in my belly.

That lasted 7 days, my son was born at 9:51pm June 20th, 2014 at 24 weeks and 2 days. He weighed 1 lbs 12 oz, he was 11 inches long. He cried the second me was born and breathed on his own for the first  4 days. He was on CPAP for 4 days, intubated for 66 days, back on CPAP for 21 days, on high flow for High flow Oxygen for another 21 days then on Low flow oxygen for 8 days then he got to come home after 120 days in the NICU. We got to know all the people there and made friends and went through good things and bad things. I can tell you all the ventilators that they use all the test the run daily on preemie babies and what they are looking for with each one.  I can tell you what it feels like to watch your child cry without making a sound and all you can do is watch and try and figure out what you can do. Because as a parent you are programmed to fix their pain. You are programmed to scoop them up and do everything you can to make them not hurt any more.

As a preemie parent you find ways to help your child in non conventional ways to parent, and it is different with every parent. Some mothers pump and come for a cuddle and then go home. That’s ok, the NICU is a scary place and you know that your little one is in good hands and they are involved in their own way. That is how my husband handled the NICU minus the pumping. There are parents that are there every day for their child but don’t want to know about the procedures, they are only there for their child and that again is ok because its how your are coping. Then there are parents like me, who are there every single day, know what machines he was on, every medications he was on, every procedure he had done and how long he was on each medication.

When we were told that he passed all his requirements to go home and we could take him home, we were ecstatic. He was Finally coming home!! He was coming home on oxygen and they pictured him on it for 6 months and we had booked an RT, repertory therapist, to come to our house and set up equipment and we also had booked one to come once a week for assessments to see if we could turn down the amount of oxygen he was needing, And his RT saved his life. after only being home for less than 24 hours he went limp pale and stopped breathing. She calmly told me to call 911 and she started trying to stimulate him and she started CPR on him. She got him to cough and start crying and he pinked right up. I was crying and trying to not panic while on the phone with 911, I did everything 911 told me to do except CPR because his RT was doing that. The fire department and the ambulance arrived, he was awake and scared by that point. They handed him to me and I calmed him down, I carried him down to ambulance and they hooked him up to their monitors and he was stating awesome.

It was 24 hours from the time we walked out of the NICU with our baby, till we walked back into the same NICU with him. There was some rule that said if there was an issue within 72 hours of discharge he is to go back to the NICU he was discharged from. They hooked him up to every machine and they did a full work up on him and there was nothing wrong. They did a chest X-ray to see if there was an issue there and there was nothing. They could not find a reason for what happened, now I am scared to bring him home. I am scared that this could happen in the middle of the night and I wont get to see it. That I wont be able help him and make him cry and breath. They told me that it was because he probably aspirated some food or vomit in his lungs and that I shouldn’t worry.

He will be in the NICU for another 24 hours and let us know if they want him to stay or if we can take him home.  I am not writing this to scare anyone. Because being a parent is scary but being a preemie parent is scarier. We know what almost feels like when you in the hospital and when we get home we shouldn’t have to feel almost. But take the infant CPR class if you can, and just watch your little one closely. He is alive because we watched closely and there I can rest easy because even if this happened I know I as a parent did everything I know how to do. Yes I am scared to bring him home, but who isn’t scared to bring a baby home for the first time, in our case a second time. But we will power through and I know he will continue to thrive and grow.

As a preemie parent you grow and learn to handle the fear and channel it into something useful. I always found a reason to smile while in the NICU with him and I will keep finding a reason to smile through all of this because preemies in a happy home will grow up happy. He is a mellow happy baby and I would like the think that’s why, He only fusses when he is hungry and dirty, other than that he is all wonder and all about the cuddles with my husband and I. He loves his bouncy chair and watching our cats around the living house. You find ways to smile in the scary parts. Smile.

Some days I feel like a human dairy cow, just so I can make sure my son gets all the proper nutrition he deserves since he working so hard. I am OK with fact that I had to do it, its what us moms are suppose to do for our babies. We birth them and take care of them by protecting them and changing the poopy diapers and feeding them the milk from your body. I am just feeling so tired and worse for wear on the whole thing, my little guy is only 3 pounds and he cannot breast feed. He has a tube that goes down his throat into his stomach That is hooked to a pump that puts the milk directly into his tummy. No tasting or anything he gets 16 ml over 50 minutes every two hours, sometimes they will allow us to out 2 ml in his mouth, but he is not coordinated enough to suck swallow and breathing yet. I know some adults who are not coordinated enough for that. But when your kid is eating good and not spitting up or getting upset tummy’s or not pooping blood, you find that strength and that energy to keep pumping every 2 hours or a minimum 8 pumps a day. By the time your child is 3 weeks old you should be producing 600 to 800 ml of milk a day as per my lactation consultant.

Yes I know moms of non preemies get to meet with these lovely ladies as well, but you don’t have them calling you at home to book an appointment to see them, or see them once a week to talk about your boobs or milk supply. And when you have your supply drop off so bad for no reason, making you feel like you are a bad mother because while these nurses and doctors are doing most the work caring for your child you can’t do the one job you can do for them, these ladies are your best friends, they have magic tricks to make the milk come. From simply holding your child or using a warm towel around your breast, to a magic pill taken 4 times a day while you pump 10 times a day. They will listen to you cry because you are only producing 290ml instead of 600 ml a day, but they will tell you everyone is different and some women can make to much milk some women make too little, that doesn’t make them good or bad mothers. It makes them human.

Another problem I have noticed with myself and a few preemie moms is finding that drive to pump while your child is sick and taken off feeds. This happens too often in the NICU and it could take weeks for a little one to get back up to what is considered a full feed. Now the doctors and nurses are not barbaric and stop feeding the babies for shits and giggles , no what you need to remember is that they are early and their little bodies aren’t designed to eat real food, or milk, yet. So there are things that can arise that will render them NPO, which means no food. But they do get the vitamins proteins and fats through an IV so even if they aren’t eating they are still getting the nutrition they need to grow up big and strong. I have mentioned certain things that can render the babies NPO above, and when your baby is NPO you as a mom find it hard to make yourself pump because that food isnt going to your baby its going in your freezer or the hospitals freezer. To sit and wait for your baby to get better which could be hours, days or even weeks. When your child is that sick you literally can do nothing to physically care for your child. You sit and watch the nurses and doctors work while you may get to hold their little hand or do kangaroo care if they are not that sick. I know its hard because I have gone through it, I am going through it but you just have to think ahead for that milk.

Soon your little one will be better and soon after that eating 16 mils every 2 hours, thats 192 ml a day. Plus if you pump less than 8 times a day to many days in a row, your supply will drop drastically, it takes weeks to pick your supply up and by then your kid could up to full feeds. I know its hard but you should try and power through for the bigger picture. You are not alone in this fight. Remember “two steps forward one step back” the NICU motto. It shows you are going somewhere just at a slower pace.