One in eight babies is born too soon. Fortunately, Ian was not one of them- he was born at 41.1 weeks gestation. (For those who don’t know, that means NINE days past his due date. Waiting for Christmas as a kid now looks like a piece of cake in retrospect. We are talking about the LONGEST NINE DAYS OF MY LIFE. And thank God for every minute of them, because they clearly did him only good.) With a little luck and as much medical care as we can possibly get, Baby 2.0 (Michael has begun referring to this unborn child as “El Segundo,” but I still prefer my standby, Spazzface 2.0.) will also be full term and robustly healthy.
I plan to have a healthy pregnancy, so you’ll see me out there this spring, Marching for every baby with my curly-top kiddo and my hippopotamus belly in tow. Because this matters. I think about the 1 in 8 of my kids’ age mates who were or will be born prematurely. Some of them won’t make it. The others will be my children’s friends. They’ll go to the same schools, play on the same playgrounds, and have all the same advantages- except one. Some of them will struggle all their lives with the effects of being born early.
Doesn’t every child deserve the chance to be born full term and healthy? Please visit the March of Dimes and see what you can do to help.
