Nurses strapped me first to a monitor to check the baby\u2019s heartbeat, then to an ultrasound machine. The undercurrent of fear that I was feeling seemed to have no effect on the nurses who came and went. They asked lots of questions \u2013 everything from the sex of the baby to my pregnancy history to whether or not I smoked or did drugs. A bit later, an obstetrician that I had never seen before came into the tiny room in his scrubs. We could see that he had been roused from sleep to attend to me because of the rooster tail near his crown. A little while later, a neonatologist took his turn to provide bad news. He was a soft-spoken, gentle man, but his demeanor couldn\u2019t allay our fears once he told us that if the baby were born now, there was a good chance she wouldn\u2019t be able to breathe on her own.<\/p>\n

By the time the nurses changed shifts at 5:00 a.m., we weren\u2019t doing so well. With each gripping pain of a contraction, we knew that we were a step closer to delivery. I had been placed in a small room near the L&D desk, which was different from the other labor and delivery rooms in that it had more monitoring equipment and less room to move. We knew very little about premature birth, and had no idea what to expect or even what the mortality rate was for babies born at twenty-nine weeks. I had known two people who had delivered prematurely, and both of those babies died without ever leaving the hospital.<\/p>\n

I felt fearful and helpless, like a child, wishing for my mother, because mothers always have answers. But my mother had never been through an experience like this one, and I would have to face it on my own. It was at that point in my ordeal that an angel arrived in my room. I\u2019m not talking about a mirage or wings and halos \u2013 this angel’s name was Katie Parker. Katie was a sorority sister of mine in college, and although we never close and I hadn\u2019t seen her in several years, she was a breath of fresh air and a symbol of hope for me. I knew her to be a warm, considerate, calm, and very intelligent individual. True to her reputation, she offered to switch to another patient to avoid my feeling uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

I quickly declined, feeling that Katie had been sent to me for a reason.<\/h2>\n

During the next twelve hours, I experienced steroid shots, to mature the baby\u2019s lungs, and the surreal experience of having a bowel movement while on a bedpan with instructions not to push (!!!). I wasn\u2019t allowed to eat or drink anything because I couldn\u2019t have an emergency c-section on a full stomach. At one point, the doctor began to doubt that my water had broken, since I had not leaked any fluid since coming in to the hospital, and made the decision to try to stop labor. It was decided that I would be put on magnesium sulfate \u2013 \u201cmag,\u201d as they call it \u2013 to stop the contractions. Although we didn\u2019t yet know it, the birth and first several weeks of my daughter\u2019s life were to be a long series of goals to be achieved. The first of these goals involved the steroid shots. The shots were to be given three times, twelve hours apart, with the maximum benefit achieved twelve hours after the last shot.<\/p>\n