Small Beginnings

As it was Mother's Day on Sunday I thought I should offer something on mothering. The following is a precis of a piece I wrote a few years ago for a magazine, on my experience of having a premature baby - 27 weeks.  The fight for survival of these tiny little beings, who look like old men and women, and grow into chubby babies  is both heart wrenching and awe inspiring at the same time.  This Birth Stories website offers some great accounts from families, of the stress of premature birth and the wonder of their tiny baby's survival.

Fifteen years ago I gave birth to a chicken fillet, or at least that is what he looked like. Ejected from my womb 13 weeks too early my 900g baby boy was scrawny, wrinkly and – well  - chook-like.

The nurses advised that we needed to mourn for the image of a healthy, full-term baby we had incubated smugly in our minds since deciding we were ready to start a family. They should have added that at some point I would also have to forgive myself and let go of the sense of failure.

Like many crises we witnessed the best and worst of people: from the negativity of some of my work colleagues deciding not to have a collection “just in case”, to the incredibly optimistic gift of a 1.8 metre height chart. There was the dedicated medical staff and the wholly insensitive “Oh you’re lucky to have the hospital looking after your baby while you are out and about”!

And in fact there was the rub. With my first-born fighting for life in a hospital incubator, I was “Mother” but how could people know. I stared at heavily pregnant women and pushed past those with a pram of pastels, as for ten long weeks we existed in limbo.

Then there was the intimate relationship with an electric breast pump. Once I was informed that the milk of a pre-term baby’s mother is constituted to provide the fatty acids and antibodies that should have been delivered in utero, I was obsessed. Occasionally now I try to perk the ’girls’ up by telling them they once produced a litre a day!

Other side-effects: I do feel an inordinate amount of pride when my six foot, handsome teenager regularly consumes his birth weight in chicken fillets!