Oh to be as flexible as our young Tae Kwon Daniel! Even his master teacher is impressed with how he can just fold himself completely flat to the ground as if he is hinged in some way. One of the hazards of prematurity finally pays off.

Oh, if only I had Susan Wagner’s style! Believe me, I am trying. This past August I celebrated the loss of weight and inches thanks to my shredding and running by purging my closet. It was then, inspired by Susan’s own working closet posts that I resolved to stick to simple, classic and clean lines. It’s a work in progress but I’m working on it…working on it as best as I can with the limited Big Top budget.

Here is where I whine just a little that unemployment and underemployment sucks. It sucks big time!

The new holiday J. Crew catalogue arrived with its Shoe of the Month Club. How it taunts me. So does the opening of the new H&M store in a mall close by. Which brings me back to the above paragraph of whine once more.

But before the whine overcomes me completely in a pathetic self-pity wallow, I find myself looking to Susan’s challenge this month of thirty days of The Working Closet. Susan writes:

From the beginning, the idea was to replace traditional fashion media with an interactive community, one composed of women who were wearing a variety of sizes and shopping at a range of places. And while we defined ourselves as “working” women, we were pretty liberal about what constituted work:

The rationale is simple: seeing what other women are wearing to work (even if your office doubles as your kitchen table and your boss is still wearing diapers or napping every day) can inspire our own wardrobe choices. Fashion magazines are a wonderful source of information, but only if you’re planning to replace your entire closet every season. Seeing what other working moms are doing with that black skirt from five years ago and the ubiquitous jean jacket can actually be far more useful.

It seems that this is just the inspiration that I need while I try to restrain my shopping and shop from my own closet. So the past twenty days or so I have been shopping from my closet, planning and putting together my daily ensemble, taking my picture and posting it to the Working Closet Flickr Pool. It has been fun, just as Susan predicted. The advice, ideas and compliments only encourage me and reinforce my goal to keep my look simple, classic and clean Juggling has never been so stylish and classy!

I’m sick again. I will spare you my massive, amazing bed-head and bright, red nose. But I will share with you Daniel’s Curious George that he insisted I cuddle with while I lay on the couch sick and miserable.  It helps. It helps a lot.

Speaking of help, Anissa Mayhew, blogger extraordinaire, mother of three and first runner-up of Bewbfest ‘09, suffered a massive stroke yesterday and is currently in an ICU in critical condition. If I could, I would send her Curious George. I can’t because George would miss Daniel so. But I and everyone else can still pray and help.

Daniel Quinn- age 7 born at 24 weeks gestation weighing 1lb 60z

We need to fight ― because babies shouldn’t have to.

November 17 is dedicated to raising awareness of the crisis of premature birth. The March of Dimes invites bloggers like you to get involved.

• Learn about premature birth at marchofdimes.com/fightforpreemies
• Put a badge on your blog during November, Prematurity Awareness Month®
• On November 17, blog for a baby you love and to help others

I have a confession to make. I twitter at work. No, I don’t necessarily tweet about work. I just tweet or twitter away during my down time in between direct patient care. It’s a nice distraction to keep me awake in the wee small hours of the morning when it seems like 7 AM will never come. It stimulates my mind. It makes me smile when I’m having a tough night at work.  I meet the nicest people that way sometimes. To those of you who put up with my middle of the night tweets, I thank you. Sometimes while twittering away, I will receive a random message not unlike this:

“any idea of the stats on survival of 26-wker??“

It’s an innocent enough kind of question. Usually it is someone who is worried about a friend of a friend and just once some reassurances that everything will be okay. I get it. I am the same way when I hear that a friend is dilating 15 weeks early or another friend’s son and wife are delivering their first child ten weeks early. Intellectually we all know it’s too soon but we have all heard stories of 2 pound miracles who are now over 6 feet tall and playing football. We’ve all seen our share of “preemie” babies born on television dramas who come out looking like chubby, three month olds with loud, lusty wails. We want theese kind of stories for our friends, for our families, for ourselves. Who doesn’t?

It’s hard for me to answer these questions to the average lay person, the average person who has never held a 1lb baby in their hand or have literally breathed for a baby 15 weeks too early to the birthday party. It’s hard for me to look parents, family and friends in the eye and tell them that the frail, almost bird-like baby with translucent skin showing practically all their veins nested in the isolette will grow into the perfect, athletic, valedictorian at their high school graduation. I can’t tell them that. I won’t tell them that because I have no clue. I have no clue if the baby will make it through the next three days, the next year or will ever be the whatever they imagine that baby will grow up to be.

The week that my son was born sixteen weeks too soon and admitted into the NICU where I worked there were two other baby boys also born sixteen weeks too soon. They all were oh so small. Much too small to breathe on their own. Much too small to nurse at their mothers’ breasts or take a bottle. Much too small to keep their own bodies warm. They were much too small to survive. But they all survived their birth, the first of many, many, many hurdles that they would have to jump over. They all were so similar in their condition, their treatments and their initial prognosis. A couple weeks later, of the three 24 weekers, Daniel was the sickest, the most gravely ill. Looking at the three of them through a clinical eye I could have easily predicted that my little man would have the worst outcome. He was the smallest, the frailest. Days blurred into weeks and then a couple of months and suddenly the smallest, the weakest, the sickest was thriving, growing and the strongest of the three. Time went on and soon Daniel was discharged home while one went on to another hospital for even more intensive care where he would wait for a new liver that never came. He never saw his first birthday. The other grew chubby and delightfully playful but could not breathe on his own. Dependent on a ventilator, he would go to a step-down rehab center for long term pediatric patients where he stayed until just past his fourth birthday. Three babies. Same sex. Born at the same gestation. Not one neonatal expert could have predicted the outcome of any of them. Not one neonatal professional would predict.

The fact of the matter is even if a preemie, a micro-preemie survives the first 72 hours, the first week, the NICU stay, no one can predict or imagine what that child’s outcome will be. A baby born 14 to 16 weeks early has pretty much a 50-75% chance of survival these days thanks to advances in neonatal care and practice but that does not guarantee a happily ever after for any of them. These babies are still so vulnerable during their first 2 years of life and, sadly, some do not survive after going home. Even after that there is a high risk of lifelong disabilities (cerebral palsy, mental retardation, blindness, deafness, autism to name just a few) that can be completely debilitating. Beat those odds and most micropreemies still face learning challenges as well as physical, sometimes chronically painful, challenges.

Not a day goes by where I don’t find myself looking at my son and marvel over how much he has overcome, how rare and fortunate he is as a former 24 weeker and over the many, many more hurdles he must overcome or somehow get around as he continues to grow. He, with the help, love and support of his team of medical professionals, educators, his family, his friends, his fans has come so far, so very far. I celebrate it. I give thanks for it everyday. But then I look down the road and know there is so much more he must do.I’m confident in one thing of my son’s journey. I am confident that no matter how far he might come in his own climb, he will not be alone. That is all that I can promise and guarantee for him. Well, I can also promise and guarantee that he will have the most amazing cheering section. He always has. He always will. God only knows what accomplishments of Daniel’s that we will be cheering for.

So, you want me to tell you that the 24-28 weeker you know will be okay? I can’t. I won’t. It’s a question that can’t be answered until that baby reaches the end of their life’s journey no matter how short or how long and winding it might be.

Today I am blogging for Prematurity Awareness.

Are you a parent of a preemie? Are you a preemie? Do you know and love a preemie? I challenge you join in and share, blog today to raise the awareness of premature birth.

It can be shocking the day you say or do something and realize, “Oh. My. God. I am becoming my mother!” I have had those moments but it’s okay, it’s really only the good traits and habits that I picked up. I tell myself that and I believe that. I also give thanks that Mommy Dearest the First lives far enough away that she can’t share a smug smile of satisfaction that, yes, I am (in some ways) just like her. But as for Holly, well, Holly lives just a few miles down the road. I see her and Hazel practically everyday. As if that weren’t enough we are friends on various social media sites. If I don’t get to witness her in action as a young adult and parent I can still follow it. Thanks to social media my super-mom powers are enhanced so that I can witness statements that have come out of my own mouth from time to time: “pet peeve of today: when someone insists on sleeping past 10 am. any later than that is just plain lazy.” -@hollieausta

Relax, Holly. It’s a good thing that you sometimes sound just like me. It really is.

It isn’t like it is the first time that someone, besides me, has noticed how much Hazel resembles her “Mi-Ma” <—- that’s the name my sweet grandgirl has christened me with and yes, I kinda like it. But like I said, it isn’t the first that someone has noticed how much this baby girl looks like me, in a very good way. But this afternoon we captured further photographic proof that argues, yes, this baby girl is my mini-me in a very good way.

The girl has some MAJOR bed-head going on. Sorry, sweet Hazey, this is one trait you can’t outgrow. But on you, well, it’s kind of cute.

…and you have people, you don’t need to blow out your own birthday pie candles. I mean, isn’t that what your people are for? I wouldn’t know for sure because when I was sixteen I had no people. Heck, I don’thave people for me now! But Abby…Abby has people.

When you are seven and the size of your average 4-5 year old it can be a challenge. When you still struggle with some of the physical after affects of spending the first 132 days of your life in the hospital while you finished doing the work of four months of growing and developing that should have been completed inside the womb it can be a challenge. We all know that Daniel is challenged. But we all know that Daniel faces and works at each of the challenges that comes his way not unlike the Little Engine That Could.

Daniel is at an age where he loves being active. He loves to run and jump and play with his buddies on the playground at school or with his best friend across the street. Still he has his frustrations and his barriers. He wants to play organized sports but his physical challenges are augmented with some mental as well. Although we have yet to have a definitive diagnosis of ADHD along with his global delays, it is more than clear to us that Daniel has marked attention issues. No, he is not the bouncing off the walls type of ADHD kid but he is very easily distracted and often can’t refocus even when we attempt to redirect his focus. Most of his care and education team have suggested martial arts  as a great organized sport for him as it seems to help many kids  with attention deficit issues. Taking that into consideration, we decided the time was right to explore martial arts for our little man and see if this is the right fit for him.

Today he earned his white belt. I think that it quite possibly might be the right fit for him. He may be small but he still remains oh so mighty.

Yup! We have survived yet another sixteenth year. Our third one to be exact. Of course we have two more sixteenth birthdays to get through but those will come in due time.

Today we celebrate the fact that Abigael Rose is sixteen years old today. I’m sure old friends and family who were surprised sixteen years ago when she decided to arrive four weeks early will be just as surprised that she is now sixteen years old, a junior in high school and driving…with a learner’s permit. Be warned, she will be driving solo come January.

Today it is all about Abby. The celebrations began around 6 this morning as her two closest friends came to “kidnap” her and take her out for a “surprise” breakfast. It may have been a surprise but she was up, made up and perfectly coiffed before they arrived. Maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise after all. Tonight the celebration continues with the traditional birthday dinner, the showering of gifts and the non-traditional birthday pumpkin pie. Hopefully, her grandmother will remember this year and call her too.

Happy birthday Abigael Rose, our sweet and beautiful sixteen year old, not-so-forgotten middle child. I love you with all my hearts.