The Romaezis

World Prematurity Awareness Day

November is Prematurity Awareness month, the 17th specifically is World Prematurity awareness day.

Reading so many stories of preemies has brought forth a lot of emotion for me today. Before I turn this blog into something deep, I share with you one way in which I raised awareness today. Below is a snippet of conversation with a coworker. I won’t generalize and mention her hair color, but it certainly doesn’t match mine. We often write quotes like the one I share below on our board and tease her when necessary.

Me: You’re wearing purple, happy prematurity awareness day!

K: Right, because I’m so mature.

Me: (giggle–then I realize she wasn’t making a joke) Wait, you do know what prematurity awareness means, right?

She didn’t. Of course I filled her in–then wrote this conversation on our white board.

This day obviously held much deeper meaning for me than for my coworker.

I spent some time when I woke up today and this evening after work reading the preemie (I will abbreviate) Awareness Day Facebook page. Mostly happy stories were shared and occasionally sad. Whenever I see stories of 20 something weekers, I always well up. If there is one thing this whole experience taught me, it is that you truly cannot understand the depth of some things without experiencing them firsthand.

I am lucky to be able to say that I didn’t have a 23 week preemie. Last December, doctors thought I would. When my water broke at 23 weeks 2 days I was told I HAD to make it to 24 weeks to give Kamran the chance to survive. I was also told that there was a very high likelihood of delivering within 72 hours. Further, if he were to be born at 24 weeks and survive, he would face serious challenges. This information changed me forever. It rocks you. Hearing it makes you numb–lost in a dark abyss. On the shallow end, the perfect pregnancy you were expecting is suddenly out the door. Forget all of those cute pregnancy clothes you invested in, they will just sit in your closet and taunt you when you are fresh out of the hospital and no longer pregnant. On the deeper end, visions of meeting your perfectly pink and chubby baby for the first time fade into the fear that you may not actually meet your baby at all. From there the thoughts just spiral, can my marriage handle this, I’ve failed my baby and my husband…all among the medication, doctors, nurses, blood tests and the barrage of stimulation that is hospital life.

Being in labor at 23 weeks is so many things. Number 1, it is scary. More scary than I imagine normal full term labor to be. At 23 weeks, you aren’t supposed to be there. You have no control over the situation you are in and are entirely at the mercy of medical professionals to save your baby’s life and keep you safe in the process. I can’t even accurately paint the picture of emotions I went through last December. But I was scared.

Knowing what we went through and NOT having a 24 weeker, I cannot begin to imagine how much more scary it would have been to actually have had Kamran at 24 weeks. To those parents who have realized those fears, I tip my (crochet) hat.

Knowing just how lucky we got off, most days I feel silly calling Kamran a preemie. He was born at 35 weeks. He was practically term! It pales in comparison to what could have been but thankfully was not. However, we spent 33 days in the NICU. Kamran had his own set of challenges and he certainly was a preemie regardless. I am thankful that I did not have to realize the fear of being mom to a 24 week preterm baby and am oh so happy for my happy healthy 8 month old boy born only 5 weeks early.