Have you ready about that baby who was born 23 weeks early and survived? What an amazing story! Read the story on NursingLink and share you thoughts here!

That is good news about this baby, unfortunately this is not the case for all preemies. I know, I had one. I fell in love with him. His name was Jonathan, born at twenty-three weeks gestation, on a vent, grade four bleeds bilat in the ventricles. At first he did okay until his shunt implantation. After the second infection of the shunt, a doctor cut something accidentally which landed him a long stay in the hospital, face parlayzed, and due to the brain bleeds he ended up in a wheelchair, developmentally delayed, blind, could not walk or talk. Forty eight surgeries later, many hospitalizations, he died a wrongful death due to a doctor taking out his shunt and allowing his brain to herniate. This doctor messed up twenty three kids and three died. I've dealt with preemies born this young a lot. I loved my son, Jonathan and would have traded places with him. It hurt to see him suffer. Unless, a parent goes throught this experience they cannot see what I mean. Looking back, I would have had him all over again, I think, because the part of me that loved him, knows he was a real human with a life of love, but knowing what he had to endure, was to much for him to bear, makes me think, no,,,at least now he is not suffering, or having unnecessary sufferings done to him by lousy doctors. After this mess, a lawsuit later, I have quit nursing. My feelings on preemies are mixed. I don't belive in abortion, however, if I had another baby born that early, and they had to take all those measures to keep it alive, I'd simply say. "Let it rest in peace." Living with quality of life, is not really living. I'm happy to hear there are a few happy stories floating around.

I am glad for Baby Jessica and her parents to have come through these past few months with as little problems or difficulties as they have had.   Sadly it is still not often a happy ending to alot of families.  I  consider myself one of the lucky ones and so very blessed.  It will be 26 years this month that I gave birth to premature girls.  They were 26 weeks gestation and weighed 1 lb 7 oz and 1 lb 9 oz respectively.  They had essentially no issues that they could have had, the biggest issues of course were their lungs (on vents for over 2 months) and they both had PDA's that needed surgical repair that was done when they were a week old.  They left the hospital the week of their initial due date....95 days in the hospitals NICU.  They are both very healthy and both college graduates and making what hopefully be a wonderful future for themselves. 

Medical advancements with premature babies still boggle my mind and I am eternally greatful for the wonderful NICU MD's that were there for my girls when so much of the country at that time was saying that 26 week gestation babies were "living abortions"...just think about that now. 

Good for her. These kids are fighters. Congrats to the proud parents. I too had a grandson born at 23 weeks who spent 9 mos in the hospital and had numerous surgeries, however is now doing much better.   God is awesome and some of the new technology is great.