Imagine your mother putting her life on hold for 5 weeks with your first pregnancy to take care of you while you're on bedrest and then later while your son's in the hospital.

Then imagine her coming back for 7 weeks with your second pregnancy to help with your now 3 year old son while you're on bedrest yet again.

Imagine joking with your dad about "reserving Mom for December" when you first tell him you're pregnant a second time and his saying "you can't have her for December again, I gave her up once, not again"...only to have him bringing your mom down to stay for a second December.

Imagine your father being afraid to touch your baby the first time he sees him because he's so small. Feeling like you let your dad down because you didn't give him a beautiful healthy grandson like your brother did.

Imagine your dad holding that same baby after his baptism on Mother's Day 1996, proud as punch of him. Then, 3 years later he's holding your full-term daughter after her baptism, also on Mother's Day, as she sleeps peacefully in his arms.

Imagine a second pregnancy spent feeling like you're standing on the edge of a cliff, afraid to do anything strenuous for fear of a repeat performance.

Imagine, at 34 weeks, after you've decided the danger's past and quit checking your underwear for blood every time you go to the bathroom, going to the bathroom and finding blood in your underwear!

Imagine picking up your 3 year old at daycare and calling your husband from the car to tell him to meet you on the way to the hospital because you don't have anywhere to leave your son and daycare closes in an hour. Arriving at the hospital and finding that the doc on call is the same one who delivered your son 3 years and 2 days earlier at 30 weeks gestation. Being given terbutaline, but the doctor telling you he won't use mag this time and being so very, very grateful...imagine spending the first two weeks of December on modified bedrest and brethine, with cervix 80% effaced, then being told you can get up and that you probably won't make it till Christmas (which would be 37 weeks)...only to be induced on Jan 13 at 40+ weeks! Imagine holding your 7 lb 13 oz daughter and thinking how small she is, but she's twice the size her brother was!

Imagine bringing your second child home with you when you're released from the hospital.

Imagine not being able to get her to breastfeed either and feeling like a failure all over again, but pumping for two months for her too, so she'll get the same good start her brother did.

Imagine a baby who at 4 months weighs more than her brother did at 7 months, but is taking the exact same medicines he did for reflux.

Imagine realizing that some of the issues/problems that came with your first child probably weren't related to his prematurity after all and not knowing how to feel about that....

My son was born on Nov 30 1995 at 30 weeks gestation, my daughter was born full term on Jan 13, 1999 after a PTL scare at 34 weeks.

Melissa, mom to Curtis (3.5) and Ellie (4 months)

Curtis's web page: http://www.pebbs.com/melissa/curtis
Ellie's page: http://www.pebbs.com/melissa/ellie