A baby does not decide when it will be born.
A baby does not decide when it will be born.
Physiologically, that's not how it works. Overdue babies aren't being stubborn. Premature babies aren't being impatient.
We hear it all the time when a baby is past the 40 week gestation point: "This baby is just too comfortable and doesn't want to come out yet!"
I'm positive I'm guilty of saying the same to or about a pregnant friend.
Then I experienced this same logic (just too impatient rather than too comfortable) used to describe Arthur's premature birth over and over by friends, family, and new acquaintances and suddenly it didn't feel like a flippant and playful explanation for prematurity. Suddenly it felt like a dismissal of my story and a glossing over of what really happened.
Arthur was seven weeks early because my body and the placenta I had grown for that pregnancy were at war with one another. That's the simplest explanation for what happens with preeclampsia. My body was saying "No, no, no!" to sharing resources with a foreign object (the baby) and my placenta was saying "Yes, yes, yes!" and demanding more resources by raising my blood pressure to *force* the delivery of blood to Arthur.
The constant arguing back and forth resulted in a weak umbilical flow because my body was winning the battle even though my placenta was screaming for adequate blood flow and repeatedly spiking my blood pressure. Arthur was going without the right level of nutrients for weeks and weeks, resulting in his very small size for his gestational age, which is called Intrauterine Growth Restriction or IUGR.
Arthur came early because it was unsafe to stay inside me. It was unsafe for him and it was unsafe for me. Arthur came early because doctors saved us from a horrible situation before it got worse. Arthur came early and thrived, not because he was ready, but because a team of talented people helped him get ready for four weeks in the NICU.
A premature baby comes early not because they wanted to, but because something was no longer working for them or the birthing person's body. Sometimes doctors know why, like in my case, and sometimes they don't, like in the case of spontaneous premature labor.
When we allow someone the space for telling what really happened, it honors the birth stories that are complicated, the ones that are hard to hear about, the ones that don't have typical happy endings. It also honors the feelings of the parents and aids in their healing too.
No, Arthur wasn't ready to meet everyone. I wasn't ready to meet him. His daddy wasn't ready to take on the responsibility of caring for his post partum wife. We still had birthing and breastfeeding classes scheduled. We still had a lot more time to dream and enjoy the process.
We weren't supposed to be ready yet. And that's an okay story, too." -NICU Mom, Chloe