I gave birth to twin girls at age 18 on May 29th, 2003. They were only 24-25 weeks. One weighed 1lbs 5 oz. and the other weighed 1lbs 4 oz. The youngest was doing the best because she didn't have any problems besides breathing, but she died two days later of a severe bleed in the brain. And that left Z. She had problems like any other preemie. While she was in the hospital we had problems with her duct not closing, a couple of times she had a blood infection, her lungs collapsed, she was diagnosed with stage 3 ROP, and I'm sure there were a lot of other things.
It hurts when I hear people talk as though a micropreemie's life isn't worth saving. I've heard people say that they're going to most likely have long term problems or that they're going to die anyway, so it's a waste of money to try and save them. The articles that I read with comments such as those made me feel so worthless and I felt as though it was my fault that the nurses had to work so hard to save my baby's life. And it was my fault...since I was the one who had gotten pregnant in the first place, but it wasn't my baby's fault.
I visited Z everyday. I watched the nurses stick iv's in her, draw her blood, change her diaper, scan her, weigh her diaper, and give her blood and so on. When we finally got the guts, her dad and me would bathe her, change her diapers, hold her, and when she finally could drink out of a bottle, feed her.
I believe in the power of God and I would always pray to him to help her get better and progress. It worked a GREAT deal. When the doctors told me that she had Stage 3 ROP I prayed even harder. After that I felt a sense of comfort and I thought to myself, "What if God wiped out her ROP completely?" And he did.
Z finally got to come home on September 11th, 2003. And near the end of October, she was off oxygen. When she first came home, I made sure I always read to her, talked to her as if I were talking to one of my friends, and had Mozart playing softly in the background while I was feeding her and while she was sleeping. She had a lot of doctors visits and they all said she was making progress. Her stage 3 ROP went down stages until it was no more. I never really thought that was possible. She might have to wear glasses as she gets older, but so what? A majority of America's population does. A funny story is how I would put these little elastic bands on her hair made for kids. These bands are smaller than a baby's ring. One time I had sat a very tiny elastic band down to comb her hair first, and she saw it and reached for it.
To make a long story short, Zaynah is now 6 1/2 months adjusted and she's doing EVERYTHING that she's supposed to do. Her therapist said it's rare that she can do all this being born so early and she's going to do just fine. She's laughing and cooing, she tries to yell at me (lol), making silly noises (seeing what she can do with her voice), she can roll from her stomach to her back and from her back to her stomach whenever she pleases, she scoots around and gets into everything, she's holding her own bottle, she grabs things, she's very alert and even though they say babies can't see very far, she can see someone all the way on the other side of the room. Things that she's supposed to do at her age. And it's all because of God. I also want to say thanks the nurses at Kosair Children's Hospital that treated my baby like their own.
And you don't know how much it means to a caring parent to see that nurses care. This one nurse in particular would do little things like putting little hand made dresses on her when she was only like 2lbs, and putting little bows in her hair to cheer me up. I hope this story is an inspiration to you because I know you may sometimes feel like it's hopeless or you're not doing a big of a difference. I wasn't asked whether or not I wanted my babies to be kept alive when they were born. And Z gives me a reason to believe that it was a good thing. What if we had given up? Z wouldn't be here.
{Edit} Sorry, the links of the pictures were broken. I finally fixed them.
