Imagine.....after the "perfect" pregnancy to lose your mucous plug two days shy of 26 weeks.....and going on to work because the doctor told you mucousy discharge was normal at that stage and you didn't know what a plug looked like.

Imagine.....one mile from home flagging your husband down with your headlights because you're in so much pain you can't drive and can't get out of the car when you stop at the office.

Imagine...staying in the office until the doctor's office opens because you think it's a bladder infection and it'll wait a half hour.

Imagine.....getting to the doctor's office and having contractions, only the monitor isn't picking anything up and you don't know what a contraction feels like anyway. You get an exam which shows you've started to dialate and you're sent across the street to the hospital where you get two shots, the contractions stop and you're sent home to take it easy.

Imagine......the contractions show up again 45 minutes after you return home and you end up back in the hospital where the monitors STILL aren't picking them up, so the doctor puts you on MagSulfate "just in case" (bless this doctor).

Imagine staying on Mag for two days and on the third day (which is the day you hit 26 weeks) you start having the most awful backache you can imagine.....and for seven hours you're told that it's muscle spasms from bedrest and you're NOT contracting and you're going home this afternoon.

Imagine that at 11:00 you feel the urge to push and the doctor examines you and you're only 3cm, but you're 90% effaced and they take you to the delivery room and tell you to push and your son is born at 11:29.

Imagine a 2pound 5 oz. baby who is big for his gestational age and somehow manages to avoid all the "major" problems except for RDS and PIE and all those other lung problems.

Imagine beating the PIE and walking in one night as the neo is running down the hall to find your child has aspirated vomit up the vent tube and now is on an oscillator with a collapsed lung fighting for his life.

Imagine....after 9 weeks your son extubates himself and stays off the vent for almost two months, all the while fighting UTI's and other sorts of infections.

Imagine.....spending frustrating weeks trying to teach your child to eat because it's the only thing keeping him in the NICU and celebrating that he weighs over six pounds. And the "feeding team" says he can't swallow properly and breastfeeding is too dangerous for him. Then the neo discovers he's tongue-tied, clips his tongue, and the baby eats like a champ.

Imagine......seeing your six pound 8 ounce baby on a ventilator again because now he has reflux to the point that aspirations could kill him and it's already a week past your due date and he was supposed to come home when he could completely feed by mouth.

Imagine....the neo explaining a fundoplication to you and recommeding a transfer to a children's hospital, and then mentioning that because of all the aspirations and prolonged de-sats that your child will probably have CP.

Imagine.....fighting a specialist who wants to extubate your child for testing to keep him on a ventilator because you're afraid the testing will cause reflux to the point that he can't be intubated again and he'll die. And the specialist doesn't believe you because you're only his mother.....and the baby's neo backs YOU up.

Imagine......the surgeon telling you your child is too small for a fundoplication and it might not work and recommending an intestinal feeding tube instead - AFTER the ph probe shows no reflux with feedings. And deciding to go ahead with the feeding tube because it's the only thing to protect your baby from the unpredictable, life-threatening reflux and get him home.

Imagine....seeing your baby on a ventilator trying to scream because he's hungry and he's NPO until after the surgery, then seeing him wheeled away for surgery and then seeing those tubes and drainage bottles hanging out of his little belly.

Imagine....the smile on your baby's face when you walk in on April 30 and he's off the vent and you can pick him up and hold him again.

Tammy (mother of William born 1/6/99 at 26 weeks who is still in the hospital and weighs a whopping 7 pounds)