National Prematurity Awareness Day

Today, November 17, is National Prematurity Awareness Day.  Today, many people are participating in Bloggers Unite Fight for Preemies to raise awareness about the 20 million babies that are born early each year.

Everyone who reads the blog should know that our kids were born very premature, at 25 weeks and 2 days.  They weighed in at 1lb 9oz, 1lb 14oz, and 1lb 13oz.  Our lives were turned upside down the day they were born.  We lost our son Adam after 12 hours and we watched Lindy and Will fight for their lives.  There are no good words to really describe the feelings you have when you deliver your children that early.  We lost one baby and we didn't have a clue if the other two would make it.  And what would their lives be like if they did make it? We sat in the NICU everyday for 3 months waiting for our first baby to come home.  And when we finally got to bring Will home, we had to leave Lindy there.  For another 1.5 months.  It's hard having two babies in the hospital and it's hard having having one at home and one 2 hours away. 

Thankfully the March of Dimes is trying to educate, prevent, and help familes cope with premature birth.  We are thankful for the research the March of Dimes has funded.  Our children benefited from their research and it helped two of the three survive. 

When you have a premature baby it can either pass away, survive and have disabilites as a result of the prematurity, or it can turn out completely normal.  I feel like I had all three.  Adam passed away because he was just born too early.  Lindy has severe hearing and vision loss, hydrocephalus and a shunt, kidney issues, paralyzed vocal cords, cerebral palsy, and the list goes on.  And Will, for the most part he has no complications.  We pretty much experienced all that prematurity has to offer.  And it sucks. 

1 in 8 babies is born premature in the United States.  That means that someone you know had a baby born too early.  We need to help fight this battle.  The little innocent babies can't fight the battle, so we have to.  We need to do what we can to stop babies from being born too early.  We need to all dream of the day when all babies are born healthy.  But we need to work with the March of Dimes in the meantime to get there.

Lindy

Will

Adam