Always in the Back of My Mind

"Since having my son at 24 weeks gestation, almost 4 years ago, I have tried to create more awareness about these tiny fighters. When someone hears that you have had a baby 16 weeks early the first thing they ask you is if the baby is okay. If you start to explain that lots of therapy is needed and that problems could come up at a later date that is where the understanding ends." - from growingyourbaby.com/micropreemies

I just stumbled across an article (quoted above) that hit home with me. The author, preemie mom Lisa Arneill, reflects on the risks associated with a preemie, even one who appears to be doing great. The effects of prematurity linger a lot longer than most folks consider a child a preemie. Yes, Becca is amazing and doing very well, and no, I don't want her (or me!) to be defined by her prematurity, but I as her mother (and John as her father) have to be vigilant and proactive about potential issues and risks. Becca is strong and sturdy, but she still missed out on some major development in the womb; there's just no getting around that. There are reasons why pregnancies are supposed to last 40 weeks.

I think it's human nature to want things to be finished and finished well. I think we like not just happy endings, but endings in general. We don't do well with ambiguity. We're not good at waiting and seeing. So it's natural for folks to want to think that Becca is "over" being a preemie. Sorry, folks, it's just not that easy. I wish it were. You know, of course, that I couldn't be happier with how well Becca has done and is doing, but I can't just let down my guard, enroll her in preschool, and get on with my life.  Not everybody understands why I do what I do with Becca, and we humans are quick to judge (especially new mothers, it seems), but until you truly understand what it is to have and to be a preemie, neither you nor I should expect you to understand the sometimes difficult and unpopular choices we have to make on Becca's behalf.

I don't think we can really comprehend what it is to be born severely premature. What must that experience have been like for Becca? She nearly, in a sense, suffocated in the womb and died from malnutrition. She was taken from this dangerous place into an even more dangerous one, transitioning from fetus to baby far before her tiny body was ready to breathe air, eat milk, see, hear, or even be touched. She was designed to be safe and secure for 3 more months, but instead she was immediately intubated, hooked to machines, covered in wires, poked and prodded and stuck endlessly for months. There was not a single system in her tiny body that was really ready to be functioning outside of the womb. Machines had to do the work that her body was not yet able to do, and it went on that way for months. I am ridiculously, inexpressibly grateful for her nurses and doctors who took incredibly gentle and loving care of her for those months...but let's face it, there's no way to make a spinal tap comfortable for a fetus baby.

I thank God every night that Becca made her appearance at just the right time, no sooner, no later, given our circumstances. I am comforted by the fact that she won't have any recollections of these first too-early months.  (Except for you guys, Leigh, Millie, Carla, Heather, and Stacy...I firmly believe that as long as she keeps seeing you guys, she will remember you!)  But we all know that she was born too soon.  And the question of what that may mean for her 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, and 50 years down the line is always in the back of my mind.