Today is World Prematurity Day-
Each year approximately 15 million babies are born prematurely worldwide, with about 500,000 in the United States alone. With each passing day, we are grateful for the health of our four babies who were born nine weeks too soon. I am grateful for the medical care they received prior to birth, our delivery team, our NICU care team, and for the therapists who have helped them thrive since coming home. Each night, I kiss our children and hug them in gratitude for them moments we are given, and try my best not to take them for granted even on the most trying days. I will never forget the days we spent in the NICU, and each night I pray for families currently facing a NICU stay that they find solace and strength.
These images tell just a bit of our NICU stay.
Wires and tubes became part of our normal while in the NICU.
Unlike typical mothers, I did not get to hold my babies for well over a week. This was the moment I held Mason for the first time.
After birth, our babies were each fitted with a CPAP and bonnet to help them breathe. I did not know what my babies looked like for well over a week.
Our eyes adjusted to days of blue lights in our NICU room, helping to remove the billi from our babies’ systems.
The first time we could hold Sydney, I feared breaking her because she was so tiny and fragile.
In the days I yearned to hold my babies, all I could do to comfort them was hold their tiny bodies through portholes in their incubators.
It still makes me shudder recalling the pain Sydney endured as multiples nurses attempted to set a hair thin IV. At one point, her IV could only be placed through her forehead.
hugs,
Amber
Four to Adore 
I am so amazed by God’s goodness in ya’ll’s situation though I shouldn’t be. In 1949, I was born 2 1/2 months premature. 3 lbs, 6 oz, 17 inches long. Incubators had not been invented long and I was placed in the very first one that Eglin AFB, Florida had. Six weeks before my mom was able to hold me. First baby bed was a military shoe box lined in lamb’s wool and first clothes were my sister’s doll clothes. God is awesome and I am so thankful that medical science has come such a long way since then. You and George have the God given miracles to prove that He and medical science work together. The babies are looking fantastic and love the way their personalities are showing their uniqueness even though they look so much alike. God bless!
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I am amazed by the milestones our babies reach each day, and thankful for the technology that made it possible. I’m even more amazed by stories like yours. You are a fighter my friend!
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Oh and by the way, I lost down to 2-5 before the weight regained. God is awesome!!!
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[…] background. I always knew it was an organization we supported due to our personal experience with premature birth and stint in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, but didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten) the […]
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