Preemie Maris

Maris was born three months early, at 28 weeks gestation.

This picture was taken when he was about a month old....but still 2 months premature. You can see the bandages and a couple tubes. I was not permitted to nirse him because they said he would use more calories to nurse, than he would take in. So they fed him through a little tube that went through his mouth into his tummy.

I felt so sorry that I was unable to nurse Maris. Everything they did to save his life seemed to interfere with our bonding experience. I had nursed both his brothers. I used to pump my milk and bring it to the nursery so they could feed it to Maris through the tiny tubes.

Maris had skin in this picture. When he was born, he was all red because he still did not have all his layers of skin.

He had a perfect Apgar score of 10. He was only about a foot long but I could hear him crying. The doctor was hoping Maris would weigh at least one pound. He weighed 2 lb 12 oz but since much of that was water, he went down to 2 lb.

He looked like E.T. I remember wondering if he would always look like that.

They wrapped him up like a mummy and put on his little hat as soon as he came out into the world, and whisked him off to the intensive care nursery. I only had time to give him a quick kiss before he went. I could see his eyes through the swaddling; they were a bit askew because they had already put in the drops.

When I think of all the totment Maris had to endure just to live, I feel very sad.

I could not be with him every day because for the first week or 2, I tried as much as possible to stay off my feet because I kept bleeding. Finally I had to return to the hospital for a D&C, which finally fixed that problem.