Bloggers Unite: March of Dimes

Today over 400 Bloggers are participating in Bloggers Unite Fight for Preemies to raise awareness of the 20 million babies who are born prematurely each year.  The March of Dimes is fighting to drastically decrease these numbers.  You can learn how to help fight against premature birth here.

As a mother of four preemies, I owe an ENORMOUS thank you to the efforts of the March of Dimes.  Each of our 32 weekers benefited in some way, shape, or form from their dedication to fighting for preemies and diligent research.  Although our quadruplets had to put up a fight for survival (especially Clark), they came out of the NICU experience with flying colors.  

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Most would call us lucky.

We beat the “odds”.

We had a favorable outcome in the face of many obstacles. 

Obstacles that included respiratory distress, a NEC (Necrotizing Enterocolitis) scare, high billirubin levels, high blood pressure, bradyacardia, apnea, dangerously high CO2 levels, and digestive issues.

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However, we know better than chalking it up to “beating the odds”.  We know that “luck” discredits the true factors in our boys’ survival.

Most of all it ignores God’s ultimate plan. He chose to give us life.  Sometimes He chooses to take life (that He created) away.  Sometimes even to those in our exact same circumstances, or with even better “chances”.  I simply can’t understand it in this lifetime.

And to be completely honest, sometimes it’s not always easy to be the “survivor” family. 

~ It’s extremely difficult to watch a mother of twins next to you meet her babies, for the sole purpose of saying goodbye.

~ It’s emotionally disturbing to listen to two mothers scream in agony over losing their babies on both sides of the walls of your high-risk unit room, while you feel your four babies moving inside of you.

~ It’s gut retching to have four healthy babies safely at home and read about a mother who you’ve followed throughout her pregnancy loose 5/6 of her sextuplets.

~ It’s unbearable to watch a friend’s full-term baby be born with multiple complications, and unable to survive.

Of course it makes me thankful for the breathing, heart-beating lives of our boys, but there’s also a guilt that’s hard to explain.  I don’t deserve these blessings, yet God allowed them to live; And not only live but thrive

These are the emotions that surround me as a mother of 4 premature success stories, I cannot fathom the grief of the other side.

I cannot wrap my mind around it.

Instead, I can only choose to be grateful.  Grateful for their precious miracle lives that God has chosen for us to raise another day. And thankful for how He used the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists of St. Vincent Women’s Hospital, and for the efforts made through the March of Dimes in their little lives.

And that is how we left these doors as SURVIVORS.

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If you are blogging for the cause of fighting for preemies.  Feel free to link up your specific post here: