It all just boils to the surface.

I had a post planned for today with some of the stories that the boys and I have been creating, but last night I had a brief "conversation" with my friend Lindsay, and it got me thinking. (and thinking and thinking)

She has a friend who is 27 weeks pregnant with twin girls. Her friend is in the hospital, on the dreaded Magnesium Sulfate. Trying to keep those babies cooking, as long as possible.

It was shocking to us that we were so naive about pregnancy. We are both well educated women, who um, well, lets just say, "do our research." How could we not know, or maybe understand the epidemic of premature birth.

Maybe it is a blessing that we, as total worriers did not know, all that stress might have brought our kids even earlier!

Women give birth to term babies all the time. That is the norm, that is what we hear about. I knew I would not carry these babies to term. I have a small frame, small hips, just not a lot of room there to hold two babies. But did I ever think 26 weeks? That is just unheard of. 26 weeks. Think about that. More than three months early. Three months! Just into the third trimester. WHOA. How could I not know that this was even a possibility? I thought early, 36 weeks, 34 maybe.

One in EIGHT babies is born too soon. Look at 8 friends, at least one of them, statistically at least, should be touched by prematurity. That's the same number as women touched by breast cancer.

These are not all babies born addicted to drugs, or to teen moms, or mothers who did not have prenatal care. They are women like my friends, Lindsay, Jen, Nina, Saffron, Keri, Donna, Karissa, Educated Women who took care of themselves and their babies. Women who had no idea they would be a statistic of premature birth.

They had no idea that some doctor would come in and tell them that their child or children would not make it through the night, and if they did it would be a miracle. They had no idea that people would shake their heads every day that their children survived, and fought just to breathe. They had no idea that they would have to SIT and stare that their babies for days, weeks, before they could touch or hold their babies in their arms. They had no idea the kind of agony that would cause. How they would look around the NICU and see other moms or dads holding their babies, and they would fight back the tears as they wondered if their day would ever come.

Those parents would have no idea what an IVH, or a Oscillating Ventilator, or a High Frequency Ventilator, or a PICC line, or an umbilical line, or NEC, or a PDA, or a VCUG, or ROP or any of the many medical terms and procedures and equipment and all the things that could go wrong were. They would have no idea that they would spend endless hours at the beside of their barely alive child and then spend endless hours at home reading and researching all of the things they heard at the hospital that day.

Those parents would experience THAT moment. EVERYDAY. As they signed into the NICU and washed their hands. Searching the faces of the staff, for signs, was it a good day, was it a bad day, has anything changed, is my baby still alive? EVERYDAY. Intellectually you know they will call you if there is a problem and you need to get to the hospital quickly, because you've experienced THAT call already. But what if, in the time it took you to walk through that dead zone down that hallway in the hospital, they couldn't reach you. EVERYDAY.

Those parents, three plus years later, know that this experience will never fully leave them. There will still be days that while sitting in a park surrounded by moms and kids listening to a guy with a guitar sing "You Are My Sunshine" will bring a mom to tears, uncontrollable tears. There will still be days that hearing someone say they are 26 weeks pregnant and feel safe now will not make them want to shout, "YOU FOOL, you are NOT safe, you are a LONG, LONG way from safe". There will still be days that upon hearing that a friend of a friend is in the hospital at 27 weeks, their heart will not sink, and their eyes will not well up.

Those people, they, WE. We had no idea. Now we do and it still sucks. No one should ever have to go through that living hell. No child should ever go through half of the pain and suffering our children have been through in their young lives. No parent should have to look at her boys heels and see the scars from the constant blood draws, daily, twice daily, every three hours. No parent should have to see the scars on their child's back or chest, or belly from some procedure done before they were even supposed to be born. No parent should have to deal with NICU PTSD, for the rest of their lives. Yet, one in eight do, will, until WE do something about it.

Support the March of Dimes, during Prematurity Awareness Month, and everyday. They are Fighting for Preemies, and for All babies.

Support your local preemie parent. WE ARE EVERYWHERE.