These little boys were not supposed to do as well as they have. I had been in the hospital for the week before they were born being treated with magnesium sulfate to stop the labor. Contractions subsided, so I was discharged on a Thursday morning. I went home on strict bed rest (I had already been on bed rest since 24 weeks). Four hours later, with severe pain, my husband rushed me to the hospital, 10cm on arrival, and within 21 minutes, Ikey and Reagon were born by emergency c-section. They had an extremely rough start, and several weeks of the unknown.
Here are a couple of things they endured while in the hospital: Doctors had to work to collapse Reagon’s lung to hopefully relieve him of all of the pockets of fluid in it, while at the same time watching the grade 3 bleeding in his brain…He was finally discharged from the NICU after three months, only to stop breathing in my arms at home two days later…
Ikey, meantime, endured multiple blood transfusions. When we would arrive at the NICU to visit the babies, Ikey would be a dark red color and we knew he had received more blood that day. He had many more transfusions than his brother [as well as] a bilateral inguinal hernia repair.
Now, Reagon is a robust 60-pounds and Ikey a whopping 55-pounds. Both boys are eight-years-old and in third grade and enjoy football, baseball, and tennis.
For the past two years, I have been honored to judge the Hand to Hold Preemie Power Essay Contest, which asks parents of premature babies to write about why their children are special. The essays all are incredible, so choosing a winner is an impossible task: each and every one of those children, and especially their parents, deserves to be honored for their strength and tenacity. We wanted to share the their stories with you, so we have included excerpts from each of this year’s winning essays below. You can read the essays in their entirety on our website or on Hand to Hold’s website (www.HandToHold.org). Finally, we want to give a shout-out to Hand to Hold: this local nonprofit offers a wealth of information and support for parents of premature babies — if you or someone you know is the parent of a preemie, we encourage you to get in touch with the folks at Hand to Hold. They really are wonderful!
—Kim Pleticha, Editor
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