MomsGetReal™ is grateful to Mama Posse Founding Member Wanda Morrissey for sharing her story with our readers about her experience with having a preemie. Her son Jeffrey was born 14 weeks early, and over the next few days, we will share the story of his struggle to survive. If you’re interested in helping provide awareness and support for families of preemies and support research to prevent preemie births, MomsGetReal™ urges you to contact your local March of Dimes and volunteer your time or make a donation.
Wanda’s Story…
At first, Jeffrey wasn’t strong enough to be handled a lot. Once the doctors and nurses did what they had to do to ensure he was okay, he was exhausted. Plus he needed to be kept warm. It was humid in the NICU but even more humid inside his incubator. Taking him out would mean his temperature would go down and he lacked the ability to bring it back up on his own. Getting too cold could mean he would die, so in the incubator he stayed. The hardest part of NICU life is going home and not being able to take your child with you. The second hardest part of NICU life is not being able to hold your child whenever you want.
Not being able to hold, play with and feed Jeffrey meant that my husband, Kent, and I were unable to bond with Jeffrey in the normal way, so we were shown how to bond with a preemie. There were portholes on the side of his incubator that could be opened up for short periods of time (we couldn’t let out too much of the warm air). We could open up one of these portholes and ever so gently lay our hand on Jeffrey, it was called a ‘hand hug’. If we had had our way, we would have stood there with our hands on him all day.
We were constantly being reminded to shut the portholes. We were also given a ‘hug blanket’. No bigger than an a facecloth and made from very soft material, we were to take the hug blanket home, sleep with it and then bring it back to the NICU. The nurse would then take the blanket, fold it up and place it under Jeffrey. Our smell was on the blanket and, although he couldn’t see us, he would be able to recognize us by smell. The nurse said that Jeffrey could smell us as soon as we came into the room, I found that fascinating. We also talked and read to him a lot, letting him get to know our voices.
Jeffrey was three weeks old before we were able to hold him for the first time. That was the best day of my life. I had been itching to hold him from the second he had been born. I was always so jealous to see other parents holding their babies. I thought I would burst from shear joy the first time the nurse said, “Would you like to hold Jeffrey today?” The second he was placed in my arms I started to cry, I was just so happy. There are no words for how happy I was. I was also a little nervous. I had never held a baby so small. He was so light I could barely tell he was in my arms. And all those wires and tubes, what if I pulled something out? But I held him and I cried and I hogged the little time we had. Kent only got to hold him a moment before the nurse said he was getting too cold and had to go back into the incubator.
For those first three weeks we thought Jeffrey was doing great. His feeds were slowly being increased, he’d stared at 1 cc every two hours (1 cc= 1 millilitre = about ¼ teaspoon) and was now at 15 cc (3 teaspoons) every two hours, he was gaining weight and now weighted 2 lb 15 oz, and he hadn’t been sick once. His breathing was an issue, he had very weak lungs, but the doctors weren’t too concerned as this was all normal for a preemie. Kent and I thought that things were really going well. Then reality set in.
We will share more of Wanda’s story tomorrow. Below is information about preemies.
Preemie Information
Micro Preemie – born less than 29 weeks gestation and weighting less than 3 pounds
Preemie – born 29 to less than 37 weeks gestation
Full term – Born 37 to 42 weeks gestation
1 out of 8 babies is born prematurely . Premature birth is the number one killer of newborns and can lead to lifelong disabilities.
Survival rates:
Born at 22 weeks 10% survive
23 weeks 50-66% survive
24 weeks 66-80% survive
25 weeks 75-85% survive
26 weeks over 90% survive
November is Preemie Awareness Month with the 17th being dedicated to raising awareness.
Resources for Parents
These are some of the more well known web sites. Typing preemie into a search engine will bring up others. Support staff at your hospital will also be able to provide you with a list of resources
thank you so much for sharing your story these are the same experiences ive had. its hard for people to understand what it means to have a preemie unless they have experienced it for themselves, and i wish i would have been aware of how much information and people with similar experiences were available to me when i had my daughter.