Browsing all posts in Preemie Parents.

The Dave Ramsey Call

I found it! I searched and searched for the original call that I referred to in my Preemies & Social Security article a couple weeks ago, because a number of you requested it, and thanks to the help of the Dave Ramsey radio team I was able to get an audio of the complete call. [...]

Preemies & Social Security

A few weeks ago I was listening to Dave Ramsey’s talk radio show and a woman called in and said she had recently had a preemie baby.  She had started receiving social security benefits during her baby’s NICU stay and then continued to receive them for a few months after her baby came home because [...]

Starting a March for Babies Family Team

While our daughter Addie was in the NICU for 135 days, we struggled a lot with feeling isolated.  Our small support system was great, but most of our friends were far away and those that did live close had small children that were restricted from visiting the hospital due to the H1N1 outbreak. We would [...]

Making Your Marriage Work in the NICU

Any marriage can and will change with the birth of a new baby, especially when it’s the first child being born to new parents.  When a baby’s arrival doesn’t goes as planned, though—when a child is born with health issues or simply comes too soon—that’s when preserving a marriage takes a lot more work! My [...]

Preserving Memories in the NICU

There’s an old cliché that says, “Hindsight is 20/20.”  Never is that more true than a long NICU stay with a micropreemie!  Most of my regrets revolve around my memory-keeping techniques—and here’s the way I wish I had done things: I would have taken pictures of Adeline every day.  I would have put her next [...]

Support Groups

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently returned to visit the NICU where my preemie lived for over three months.  During my visit I got in contact again with the Parent to Parent organization they had there to provide support for all of the parents in the unit.  It was brought to my [...]

Pumping: Low Milk Supply

In February, Afton wrote a terrific post about her pumping experience called “Nessie the Milk Cow.”  Here’s an excerpt: One day I left the parent’s lounge balancing milk bottles carefully on my way to the freezer when I saw another mother leaving a pumping area with only one little bottle in her hand – and [...]

The Many Perks of Having a Preemie

In the past two years, I have realized that having a child prematurely (or in our case, extremely prematurely) actually has some advantages. We don’t fear “normal” childhood emergencies (e.g. broken arm or stitches) like other parents do.  Let’s face it—after dealing with Intraventricular Hemmorhage, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, Respiratory Distress, Retinopathy of Prematurity, and/or Patent Ductus [...]