Just a Little Bit Premature

I say this often when I speak of Carson, he was only a little bit premature. What exactly does this mean?

Although every baby is different, this is what it meant for us for Carson to be born "just a little" early.

It meant

• He was born in a hospital in Minneapolis instead of Thief River Falls.
• The nurses were strangers, not friends who knew us, our family, our story.
• The doctor who delivered him, I had not even met until I started pushing.
• The NICU where he spent his first days was like a maze, and I felt lost.
• He had to have blood drawn everyday for over a week (sometimes more than once per day).
• The nurse had to poke him 4 times to start an IV.
• He had to keep that IV for three days.
• I had to walk down a long hallway to another floor just to visit him.
• We had to ask for permission to hold him.
• We had to weigh his diapers (if we were lucky enough to be allowed to change one).
• His first feedings were through a tube in his nose.
• We could only hold him for a limited amount of times
• Even when he was out of the NICU, he had to stay in the nursery for light therapy so we still could not keep him in my room.
• After we came home, he had to go back into the hospital for treatment after being home for only four days.
• Carson did not know how to eat and it would take almost two hours to feed him, only to start all over again in two hours. 
• He was almost too small to come home in a car seat legally.

I can't complain. We had it easy. He was born on Sunday night and came home Thursday of the same week. The doctor who kept me pregnant as long as he medically could had prepared us for worst case scenario...and it was scary. We wondered if we would be home in time for Christmas, we were home on Thanksgiving Day!

I'm sure the only reason we were discharged then was because I promised the on-call pediatrician that I would take him in to the clinic on Saturday for a weight check. Carson still did not know how to latch on when when left the hospital and I have never heard of a baby being discharged while still having the feeding problems we did. He took a bottle okay, but nursing took every ounce of energy he had.

Once he was stabilized after birth he never again needed oxygen support. This was a huge blessing.

As you can see, even a little bit early is too early. No baby should be forced to go through this because of a physician's vacation schedule or a mother's holiday plans...but it happens. Physicians offer to deliver babies before 40 weeks gestation for these reasons.

There is a saying about "one day in the womb equals three in the NICU" no baby should ever be in the NICU to prevent scheduling conflicts...