Peter was born at 27 weeks and 3 days gestation at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Women's College campus) in Toronto. Since I had by that time been an in-patient in the High Risk Prenatal ward at Sunnybrook for nearly five weeks, we were extremely fortunate that the fabulous doctors and nurses of the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) were standing by to resuscitate Peter and begin the long process of saving his life, and our family. As our little rock adjusted to the daily pokes and prods of the NICU and other inconveniences of life outside the womb, my complications begat complications, and I spent another two weeks in hospital (a blessing in disguise since this meant that Peter was down the hall instead of across town).
Peter was a resident of the Sunnybrook NICU for five weeks and one day. He was deemed medically stable and transferred to the "level 2" or "step-down" NICU at St. Joseph's Health Centre on Mother's Day, 2009. There, he continued to "feed and grow", in preemie-speak, and his Dad and I became more and more involved in his daily care. On June 17, 2009, exactly two weeks before his original due date (and four days before Father's Day), Peter's 75-day stint in the NICU, and our 107-day run of daily hospital life, came to an end when we brought our little man home.
Although the progress of an extremely premature baby is never entirely straightforward, we were unfathomably lucky that Peter experienced relatively few major complications during his NICU stay. We attribute this good luck (sticklers will notice that it's entirely illogical to attribute luck to anything ... but you know what I mean) to the phenomenal level of care that he received through our glorious public health care system, as well as to the kind thoughts, ardent prayers, and positive vibes sent our way by our dear families, friends and colleagues (more to come later on specific individuals to whom we owe particular debts of gratitude).
