“I screamed in agony, convinced they would soon be bringing me back my tiny baby with looks of ‘there’s nothing we can do’ in their eyes. ‘His lungs are bad. Nothing is off the table.’ I kept asking for clarification about what ‘nothing’ meant.”
‘What do you MEAN you did chest compressions?’ I screamed. I won’t ever forget that call.’: Woman births micro preemie with pulmonary hypertension, ‘He never stopped fighting’
‘I took him to the ER. His circumcision didn’t look to be healing right. We had a gut feeling something was wrong.’: Parents perplexed after newborn’s near-death scare, ‘He’s a fighter’
“His temperature wouldn’t come above 95 degrees. The doctor said it was ‘fine’ and set to discharge us with a prescription for antibiotic cream. We had a gut feeling something was wrong. The doctor was white as a sheet. ‘This test can’t be right.’ Life stopped when he was 5 days old.”
‘The sonographer said, ‘There’s a foot in your vagina.’ I didn’t hear my baby cry. ’Is she alive?’: Woman gives birth to micro-preemie, ‘My life plans didn’t include a NICU stay during a pandemic’
“I was in a daze. ‘Your baby needs to come out right now.’ I lay on the operating table alone while they sewed my now empty womb back together. 3 hours later, they told us, ‘She might not survive it.’ Our hearts broke. None of it seemed right.”
‘I’m going to throw up.’ He looked like an unfamiliar creature. Everything I expected went out the window.’: Woman gives birth to twin preemies at 24 weeks, ‘We knew this would be the greatest fight of our lives’
“A nurse said, ‘Do you want a picture?’ I abruptly said, ‘No.’ I was trying to erase the past 6 hours from my memory. I didn’t even know if my baby would survive. Why would I want a picture or anything that would make me feel attached to this little creature? Baby B was barely alive.”
‘She wasn’t getting enough air. She was almost gasping and was quite purple. It was pure torture.’: Woman gives birth to baby girl with Treacher Collins Syndrome, ‘Her disability won’t hold her down’
“I noticed her ear looked small, but I chalked it up to the typical squishiness of a newborn. ‘So what? What is the point of showing me her differences?’ She has underdeveloped ears, cheekbones, and jaw that make her appear a little different than most of us. I just stared at her in awe, with nothing but love and admiration.”
‘No cuddles today,’ I was told 3 days in a row. I was nothing but a milk machine. It was torture.’: Woman gives birth to twin preemies, ‘I was humbled by our time in the NICU’
“I watched her lips turn blue again. ‘Breathe baby girl. Please.’ We were force-feeding them to keep them alive. They poked Hazel over and over, trying to find a vein, finally landing on one in her head. I was horrified. ‘How in the world are we all going to survive this?’”
