It’s so important to talk about prematurity. I had a few friends who had their babies early (6/7 weeks) for different reasons and never knew what they were going through. That was until my water spontaneously broke on my 24th week of pregnancy. After going through 9 months of fertility treatments I was finally pregnant with my first child and in an instant I was terrified that I was losing my baby.

My doctors were able to stop labor and tried to keep my sprits up while at the same time preparing me for the worst. I was moved to Anti-partum where hopefully my baby would stay in for a few more months. 12 hours later I was moved back to delivery and at 12:16pm I gave birth to a baby girl weighing 1 pound 10 ounces and 12 3/4 inches in length. 14 people were in my delivery to help try to save our daughter (it took a few minutes for anyone to tell us what we had).

After a few minutes of stabilizing her she was whisked away to the NICU. I didn’t even get to see her. My husband refused to let them go until they all knew her name. He told me recently he did that so in case she passed that she was with people who knew her name, Allison Beth.

129 long days. Many filled with heartache, stress, fear and tears. On day 129 we were able to bring Allison home. It took a long time before things got better. Multiple doctors appointments each week, therapies, nurses visits, ER visits with more hospital stays more surgeries (one that almost killed her). No one can prepare you for any of it.

Luckily, we have a happy 4 year old who loves everything from school to pizza to being an amazing big sister to her 2 year old (full term) sister. Although we have had the best case outcome our days in the NICU are never out of my thoughts.