7 Comments:

Eric - A friend just pointed me to your site. I'm also the parent of a micropreemie. Susan was born 11/3/03 at 27 weeks gestation, weighing 15 oz. She was in NICU until 3/15/04 and is now doing well aside from some feeding issues. Great job on the blog. I had visions of keeping one but just couldn't manage it at the time, but I'm working on the memoir now. You've really captured the sights/sounds well. Pictures of Susan at various sizes are at http://homepage.mac.com/babypics. Good luck to you all.

By  Anonymous, at 7:44 PM  

Hey just realized I forgot part of the address. It's http://homepage.mac.com/molly.sullivan/babypics.

I had the same complications as your wife - early severe preeclampsia - but in our case we knew there was something wrong with the pregnancy. At the 24 week ultrasound Susan measured small for her gestation age. Weekly ultrasounds after that showed no growth. She got to the size of a 20 week baby and just stopped growing. We had no idea why until the preeclampsia kicked in and I went in for the c-section. At one time I, too had considered a crunchy granola home birth.

Best -
Molly

By  Anonymous, at 8:01 PM  

hi molly, thanks for sending the link and telling a bit of your story. some of the pictures look so strangely familiar :-) i'm glad susan is doing well afte what must have been a very difficult 4 months in the nicu. it's interesting that you had such an early indication that something was happening early in the pregnancy. i'm not sure which would be more traumatic - to know so early that something was happening or to suddenly and unexpectedly find it out. i guess perhaps each is equally traumatic in their own special ways.

hopefully you're doing well. if you don't mind me asking, did they ever determine if there was an underlying condition that aggravated the preeclampsia? kris is currently waiting for a load of tests results that may indicate why here preeclampsia got so bad so fast.

By  e3, at 8:50 AM  

oh. and i almost forgot to mention - yeah so much for the granola, crunching home birth. it was really, really tough during the first few weeks for kris to deal with what she wanted to happen versus what did happen. and it's amazing to see how much "foreshadowing" there is in one of my first posts on meeting the midwife.

By  e3, at 8:54 AM  

Eric - I'm 31 and in generally good health. There is absolutely zero reason I should have had pregnancy complications. We'll never know why this happened to us - it's a question that's rocked me in many ways. We're nice people, have good jobs, financially secure - we're the ones you want to see having a baby! The three weeks we knew the baby wasn't growing but didn't know why were the worst. At least once she was in NICU there were people who could help her. Those weeks waiting, knowing it was all on me and there wasn't anything I could do... honestly the c-section was a relief. We didn't really expect her to make it. When the pre-eclampsia set in and I was having terrible pain I thought I was miscarrying.

We did find out that she has a genetic anomaly - a tiny extra piece of chromosome 9 on just SOME of her cells. Nobody knows what it might mean, if anything at all. Genetics is still mostly mystery. Anyway, growth restriction has been seen before in kids with ch9 anomalies, so maybe it's related. We don't know. I'm told that the complications are not likely to recur, but honestly right now I don't see myself chancing it.

I got over the birth thing pretty quickly since there was so much no other choice, but I'm still very sad that I wasn't able to breastfeed. We tried and I pumped for 6 months but it just didn't work out for us.

The kiddo is 12 lbs now.

By  Anonymous, at 1:42 AM  

I'm 31 and in generally good health. There is absolutely zero reason I should have had pregnancy complications. We'll never know why this happened to us - it's a question that's rocked me in many ways.jeez. i heard that. you just never know. kris had low blood pressure and ran three marathons last year for pete's sake! healthy as a horse, which made it all the more very, very suprising to find ourselves in the operating room 24 hours after a migraine set it.

12 pounds! that's great to hear. it's hard to imagine eric at 6 pounds, little less 12, but i'm sure we'll get there sooner or later.

By  e3, at 8:51 AM  

Those are amazing stories and hopefully all of your kids are healthy today.I am still pregnant and i am at 27.5 weeks and she weighed 1.9oz at 26 weeks.I'm hoping the is growing. I'm scared every minute of the day of having my daughter so soon. I pray to god that she'll make it to at least 31 weeks.IM stuck in the hospital right now until further notice. The doctors think i am going to have a bad case of PIH. I hate it in here they come up with something new everyday. saying they don't think i will make it to 28 weeks. I'm hoping they are wrong. I just wish she would weigh at least 3 or 4 pounds when shes born. you guys are so strong and i don't know if i could handle all of this.

By  Anonymous, at 3:07 PM  

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