New member intro.
Lynda Seehusen (lyndas@dordt.edu)
Thu, 22 Feb 1996 15:31:40 -0600 (CST)
Hi All: I just joined the list today. I'm the mom of a now 3.5 year
old little girl who was born exactly 7 weeks before her due date. It
was a complete surprise as I was having a "textbook" pregnancy and then
all of a sudden my water broke one day and she was born the next.
She had a 2 1/2 week hospital stay, mainly because her weight dropped
from her birth weight of 4 lb. 3 oz. to 3 lb. 11 oz. and she stopped
being able to eat on her own. She was tube fed for all but one or two
of her daily feedings until she was 2 weeks old at which time she
went back over the 4 lb. mark and things started on an upward trend
from there.
We were blessed with being able to hold her the day after she was born.
I had never handled such a tiny person before but soon got used to it :)
I *know* she knew who were were because she always wanted to eat as
soon as we would come (I think those things were associated in her mind).
I vividly remember celebrating the day she drank a *whole ounce* :)
She was extremely active both before birth and after she was born. She
regularly crossed her incubator with her thrashing around and would
get hopelessly tangled in her wires and rip the leads off her chest.
She's still active today, by the way :)
I joined mainly to offer my support to anyone going through this right
now. The #1 most important thing to me when Emma was born was talking
to parents whose kids had been born early but had grown up well and
healthy.
Lynda, mom to Emma, 3.5 and Shannon (full term :), 4 1/2 months.
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"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's
life, she will choose to save the infant without even considering if there
are men on base." Dave Barry.
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