November is Prematurity Awareness Month. Did you know 1 in 8 babies are born too early? I had no idea, but our precious daughter ended up being one of those 1 out of 8. While Harlen is not considered a "preemie" (she is considered late pre-term), we did face some of the same obstacles that preemies fight to overcome everyday. You never think that your baby might be born early and not be able to breathe or eat on their own, especially after have a great and healthy pregnancy. Not even my OBGYN, nor the nurses at the hospital thought there was anything wrong with my water breaking at 36.5 weeks.
In Harlen's case, we were told that it was rare to see a baby that far along and that big not be able to breathe on her own. She was just too early. Her little lungs were not ready. She fought for 9 days in the NICU trying to breathe on her own. Thanks to advances in medicine our baby girl survived because of a ventilator that was able to breathe for her. Full-term babies are born with Surfactant in their lungs. This helps your lungs expand on their own. Harlen lacked this. She was given 2 rounds of this in the NICU to help her lungs develop. If there had been signs that I might have gone into labor early there is a steroid shot that can be given to speed up the development of the baby's lungs. But there were simply no signs. Everything was perfect. I had a little spell of high blood pressure, but THREE days before my water broke my blood pressure was perfect and I was only dilated to a 1. I kept getting told that our baby girl was going to be so big! She always measured a couple weeks ahead of her gestational age. I was even going to be induced early because she was supposed to be so big that I was at risk for having to have a c-section. As just.like.that. everything changed laying in bed at 2:00am.
What I have learned... even though there were no signs anything would be wrong, even though we asked our OBGYN right after my water broke if we should go to the bigger hospital with the better NICU and she said "No. There's no need. Go to Baylor of Frisco", even though all the nurses said because Harlen was only short a few days from being 37 weeks ('term')... I should have said/done something. If I would have said no, I want to go to Plano Presbi, then I wouldn't have had to be in a separate hospital than my precious newborn daughter. She wouldn't have had to ride on the Care Flight ambulance at only a few hours old to another hospital. She would have gotten the best help quicker.
You never think it's going to happen to you. I never dreamed that I would be buying preemie clothes for my daughter. That I wouldn't get to hold my daughter until she was 5 days old. That the first time I got to see my daughter she would have so many tubes and wires coming out of her it was frightening. That doctors would tell us they 'hope' she will pull through. That I would have to leave my baby in the hospital and I would be discharged 'empty-handed'.
I realize that Harlen's stay in the NICU is minuscule compared to most, but when it's your child in an incubator hooked up to a million machines, it doesn't matter if they were in there for 1 hour. It is a lifetime to a parent.
We have come so far in 2 months...
1 day old~
Today~
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