Chapter 25 “Doctor! I Need To Push”

• I took out my laptop and typed in: premature labor and delivery. I read through a lot of medical sites. None of them seemed to worry much about a baby that was born at thirty-five weeks. It seemed that everything major would be developed and working by that time, the major concern would be weight and developmental milestones.
• After that, I read through some of the testimonials of people who had children born prematurely. One woman who’d had her baby at thirty-five weeks noted that at that point the child wasn’t even considered premature, but “pre-term.” She said he was four years old now and keeping up with his peers in both his growth and his development.
• Another mother said her son was only three pounds at birth. The doctors thought he would be small and sickly for most of his life. He’s fifteen now, she said, and over six feet tall. Reading all of that made me feel better. It also made me feel strange. I knew I was getting attached to the idea of having a son. I just hadn’t realized how attached.