At 24 weeks and 5 days I went for a growth scan, excited to get some new pictures of our first baby. Never in a million years did we imagine he would be born 4 days later. Before Bentley was born, the Neonatologist came in to explain that our son had a 30% chance of survival if he was born that day. He was extremly small, his lungs were incredibly underdeveloped and he was a boy. All odds were against us. He gave us a choice. If I had the baby, did I want them to save him? I couldn't believe my ears. Why would they even ask that? Yes, I wanted them to do everything in their power to save my baby. The next day, at 25 weeks and 3 days, our baby boy, Bentley was born at 1 lb 1 oz. The journey ahead of us was nothing we were prepared for. Through collapsed lungs, pneumothorax, breathing tubes, ventilators, feeding tubes, aspirations. We learned a lot about our son and ourselves. The NICU staff truly became our family. They were the only ones who understood the severity of our sitution, sometimes better than we did. We will be forever grateful to the neonatologist who knew we had never held our son two weeks after he was born, and fought nurses to make sure it happened, making a true miracle happen the very next day, because she knew our baby needed his Momma. It was an experience we would never trade because it gave us our amazing boy, but one we would never wish on another person. It changes you. It makes you more scared than you've ever been in your life, it makes you hurt and love deeper than you ever thought possible, but it makes you stronger in the end. When you fight with your sweet tiny baby as hard as you possibly can, knowing their fighting 10x harder, nothing else after can compare. No pain or fear will ever be deeper than the time your baby is in that NICU.