Giving Birth to a Preemie

Our baby wasn’t due for another 13 weeks. We were first-time, late-life parents-to-be, having just completed two out of six pre-natal classes. Within the week, graduation day had arrived. I gave birth to a premature infant, weighing 3 pounds 2 ounces... The year was 1979.

I had walked into the emergency wing of our local hospital, 14 hours after the onset of labour, in quiet desperation, as the pain in my body escalated. As I entered the eerily quiet lobby of the hospital, I was naively thinking that this ‘problem’- that had begun hours ago - would go away soon. I was in a hospital now and the medical staff here would know what to do. Help was here at last!

I  had called my family doctor at 3:00 a.m. that Monday morning. A later unscheduled 10:30 a.m. appointment with him would solve everything, I thought! How naive I was! Though I was awash in excruciating pain, of undetermined origin, these markers did nothing to alert my doctor that something was amiss. Nothing in his vast medical experience seemed to raise the alarm that my pregnancy was doomed and was about to end, over three months too soon. Any intervention on his part would mask what was really happening, he remarked. What was happening was simple enough: I was in full blown labour soon to deliver a preemie. At 27 weeks gestation, the baby would not survive. It was 1979, after all! Within the hour of my arrival at hospital, our son made his debut and began life in an incubator with the gold standard of medical care available. I was so very lucky. ... The Neonatal Intensive Care Team from the world renowned Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children would arrive soon, by helicopter, to take our baby back to its famous pediatric facility. ... (I met my obstetrician, unexpectedly, that morning, after he delivered our son.)

Now i began to wonder, "Are first time mothers to be coddled or patronized, while in agonizing pain, when expecting the first time"? I was trying to be proactive though getting nowhere with a trained medical practitioner.  ... Was getting pregnant synonymous with losing your ability to think, speak or act coherently and decisively?  (The maternal brain, I have learned since, is a formidable piece of machinery)  Is searing, unbearable pain a hint that, maybe, a visit to the hospital is warranted?  When unexplainable things begin to surface during a pregnancy, should we not err on the side of caution? Of course we do, but not in my case. I was scared, in unrelenting pain and getting nowhere with my doctor, a man I had trusted for years. I was betrayed under the worse possible circumstances.

I remained in my hospital room thinking about the day’s events. I had just given birth three months early and there was no one to advise me what to do next. Premature labour had begun the night before yet nothing was done to avert  the impending disaster. What more could I have done? I had the presence of mind to stay calm and focused in the midst of mind numbing pain and do what was required of me. A life was at stake, maybe two.  Had I remained at home waiting for yet my specialist's appointment, my first with the obstetrician, our son would have been born on the kitchen floor and died and my life would have been dramatically altered that day! (Our preemie arrived 4 hours prior to that appointment.) A neighbour drove me to the hospital.

I grew up that day and was now responsible for the care, treatment and feeding of a fragile, defenseless human being whose growth and development would now continue-outside the womb. How unfair life had been to him. In the hours, days and weeks ahead, my body would begin its metamorphosis in my new role as mom. Nothing in my repertoire, however, could prepare me for what was about to unfold!

Taking care of a premature infant.....