In June of 2008, our son Alexander was born at 27 weeks gestation, weighing 660 grams (1 lb 7 oz). As our time in the NICU stretched into months, we thought a lot about the situation, and what things would have helped us feel better. We thought a lot about how blessed we were, even with all of Acorn’s issues, to have such a great hospital and great staff taking care of him, so close to home - just 5 miles away. And there were a lot of little things given to us along the way that made the journey a little easier. The NICU became our second home for more than 9 months, and it is a terribly hard place for most people to be. Acorn received quite a few blankets from various sources, Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations… We started talking about things that truely made a difference for us in our time there.
Looking back, one of the hardest things those first weeks was something really simple: clothing.
Normally, you have a baby, you dress them in their specially chosen coming home outfit, you take them home, and you dress them in all these terribly cute little shirts and sleepers and outfits - sometimes three or four times a day, depending on how messy they are.
With a preemie, it’s different. And when you’re talking micropreemie (under 3 pounds), it’s even a bigger issue. The thing is, even “preemie” clothes start at four pounds. The first gifts we got in the mail for Acorn were “newborn” sized clothes, fitting babies 5-8 pounds. I remember nearly crying, because three of him would fit in that outfit - and honestly, that wasn’t just by weight. You could have laid three of him side by side, across the sleeper, from crotch to neck, and he’d've fit sideways that way in it. It didn’t matter that they leave vent babies in just a diaper so they can watch their breathing…the fact was, we had nothing that would fit him at all, and I just couldn’t visualize him eventually being big enough for clothing.
Eventually I found preemiestore.com and preemiesrus.com - and from them, I ordered a small selection of tiny tiny micropreemie clothing. We weren’t thinking about it, but had we known, we would have bugged a nurse to let us dress him briefly, long enough to get a picture. As it is, we’re planning to frame one particular outfit, along with those tiny diapers, his itty bity blood pressure cuff, his sunglasses, and a picture of his first day.
And so, Project Preemie was born. We decided that we would create a gift bag for every child weighing 1 kilogram or less at Beaumont Hospital. Maybe eventually we'll branch out further with this, but right now, it's largely a labor of love on our part, with some help from friends and family, and we have no intention of spreading ourselves too thin now that Alexander is home.
Update: our daughter, Bethany, was born in May of 2011, weighing 885 grams (1 lb 15 oz). She spent 5 1/2 months in the NICU as well, and her stay just added to our conviction that parents of such tiny babies need support.
