Tuesday, November 17, 2009

November 17 is PREEMIE AWARENESS DAY!!



Ok, this has been a very difficult blog for me to write. I have so much that I want to say and I can't seem to find the right words. I've debated about giving a bunch of statistics about prematurity, copying the generic blog from the March of Dimes (MOD)website etc. etc. Instead I've decided to share more of our story with you. Here I go....Hope I can encourage at least one person to help out with the March of Dimes.

The morning of April 12th 2009 will be permanently etched into my mind. While this sounds strange to say, since a lot of the details seem foggy to me now, I will never remember the fear that I had that day. Would my babies survive? I already had one previous miscarriage. I knew that if our girls survived I would only be bringing two of our three triplet's home from the hospital. I didn't want to accept the fact that my water had broke. What had I done wrong? Why was this happening to me? How could I fix it? To this day, I still have no answers. The doctors assure me that I did nothing wrong and that prematurity is unexplainable 95% of the time. I was determined to keep my girls in. I layed in my hospital bed all day barely moving an inch because I didn't want anything to cause my girls to be born prematurely. Nearly 20 hours later the pain of the contractions was unbearable. I remember laying in my hospital bed that evening thinking that I was about to give birth to three babies that didn't stand a chance. I was only 28 weeks pregnant why was this happening?

Without the research done by the March of Dimes, my two surviving triplets would not be the healthy baby girls that they are today. I owe my heart and soul to the people who have helped developed the ventilators, c-pap apparatuses and all the other fancy equipment that was used to bring my girls back to life. Yes, I have never shared this information, but our little Addison was "jumped started" several times that early Monday morning. If I hadn't been a nosey mom and was reading her chart in the NICU I would have never have known. I'm not sure if that is information that I really care to know, but it makes me appreciate the MOD's and all our amazing NICU nurses and doctors even more. Without all of them our precious daughters would not be with us today.


Above is Addison on day 3 of her precious life.  Still fighting on the ventilator.


Above is Alexis.  Hating her C-pap.  Day four of her life.

I would like to encourage each and every one of you to visit the March of Dimes website at www.marchofdimes.com and contribute if you can. I understand a contribution is not possible for everyone.  If you are unable to contribute financially we ask that you please just say a prayer for someone you know with a premature child.....someone who is struggling through the NICU journey right now....or for the team at March of Dimes that their work continues to be funded to help fight the unknown of premature births.

1 comment:

Robin said...

WOW. Great post. Your girls have come so far.