you for joining us to tell the viewers a little bit about why you're here well this is my mom so i had the privilege of getting special attention with that but i had my daughter  on december twelfth two thousand and seventeen she was two months early so she was a creamy how how big was she when she was born she weighed three pounds eleven ounces and she was about sixteen point seven five inches long she was a little one you have any indication that the baby was going to be premature during your pregnancy no a lot of our the tests that we do that they did routinely of d n a and all the other  just regular pregnancy blood tests and blood work and everything came back absolutely normal i had no signs of high blood pressure or anything of that nature i didn't have any program c o or any issues with the uterus or anything so there were signs at all that i would have had a premature baby so what happened in december two thousand and seventeen so all that well funny story my baby shower was december second and the very next day i went into pre term labor so i just like to tell myself that penny wanted to see her gifts early then that i didn't realize how much i went to labor i call my mom on my way to work on monday and she said call the doctor so i did and when i called the doctor the doctor said i shared to go straight to the hospital i went and got checked i was already two centimeters dilated  they didn't realize that i would have been that far along because i was only thirty one weeks at the time so i spent three days in the hospital i had magnesium on the i v drip and i had to stare at shots twenty four hours apart to help with the baby's growth in case i did go into full labor three days in the hospital i was put on bed rest so i went home then the next thing i knew i was in phone labor that monday she was and i didn't realize until i was six minutes apart with contractions that i was actually in phone labor because i didn't have that movie extravaganza water break it was a very slow  so let me just ask so they send you home and you're on bed rest so you literally sit in a bed and don't move for a couple you know the doctor actually said that that wasn't a good idea to not move  basically was saying limit my movement don't be doing the kind of steps basically i told him that my bedroom is on the second floor he said to go up for the night when you're down you're down today he was like get up make a sandwich or make yourself launch  don't not move because that could actually be bad for me he really wanted me to just take it easy slow moving did not want me working because where i work it's a lot of steps a lot of walking mom my feet so he was quick to get me out of there with that and how many days from them when you went home till you had or i went home on wednesday and then she was born on tuesday yeah so you weren't so much better us for long you know and it was and  said go straight to the hospital you're six minutes apart get there now i said ok so i looked at my husband and i said i want to eat breakfast and take shower because we're going to traffic because the forty five minute drive so i ate breakfast took my shower and we got  where on ten thirty at that point i was six meters dilated six centimeters dilated you were pushing it then i around twelve thirty i was on the nurse i i'm ready to push she's going at one ten and i remember at one ten i was in there so i said i need to push and she checked and she was like let me go get the doctor and so i knew i wanted my mom and my husband in the room so she looked at my dad and and dad if you want to move you need to get out now because the doctors come in and my dad was boom gone so next thing you know the doctor came in and i and they were you know and then bush and  in that you are very very lucky and i have actually recently had a few friends within i have a friend that was do a couple days after me and my original due date which was february second and then i had a friend who end up having a baby accompanies after me their birth stories are i'm very thankful for my because you hear some of them and it makes you think oh i never why haven't i your child because i imagine awful yeah i can't imagine  the pain because they always say you know you forget the pain immediately after labor yes pain goes away but i'm so i'm not going to forget that a nice surprise you know with a pre me so she's premature she's born like what are the concerns what is the nicu team let's let's spell that out and explain it to everybody and what did they do and why are they there basically the nicu team they were there as soon as she came out they checked to make sure that she was breathing ok to see if you know the size weight everything was kind of up to a standard they wanted to make sure they checked for jaundice which is you know the skin and had this part was to hold the seat on because they used a souped up just to make sure she was getting too much or too little oxygen when she was breathing so she had her little we also have her a little blood pressure cuff it's a little thing that fits on my thumb but so they checked her blood pressure immediately they checked everything her temperature her mid early everything just like they would  full term baby but they kind of take it to another extreme to make sure that nothing is going to go downhill where you're already at we were very lucky in the sense that when penny was born she was already breathing on her own she  doing very well and she was actually they didn't think they should be as heavy as she was so we got very very lucky in that sense because they can be their lungs can be under develop right where her heart can still not be fully develop people who don't know for a little while and she also has the delays the billy rubin lights for the jaundice yes she had the phototherapy that's kind of standard for a lot of creaminess it's just for the first ten days she was on and off it because she had moments where she didn't need it and then how long was she there twenty seven days just shy of a month that's a long time that's a long time for a new they expected her to be in there until about her due date so i was actually very lucky in the sense that she didn't spend the two months in there as expected and that we only did the one month expect she sense i went every single day and with that it's a forty minute drive for me sometimes an hour with traffic so you know it takes a toll on you so i basically did like a workday in a sense i would go first in the morning then what time it would be for work i would go home so i could be with the dog or my husband because i didn't want me poor baby dog feeling collected in the process that's tough it's tough for a new mom you know most moms go in they have their baby and they all leave the hospital together so to have to go through that i'm sure and there's a lot of moms out there who probably experience the same thing it's probably very emotional hospital and you do that for a reason so that you can trust to them that if something like this happens you know when you have that security that when you are going home at night they're getting the best care possible exactly and they also had a really cool feature they had this thing called the nick view which is a little webcam that hung over her and her eyes and every i slept had one and you had your own username and password they assigned it was the craziest things but it was for security so it was yes they so that we when you were home you could see the baby well that and maybe all the time for watching because now people can watch their dogs all the time and these doggie day care is and candles and you think oh that's extreme but y i'm sure they have it in a wad of nick use i'm part of a mommy group on facebook and other moms have mention that they've had similar types of very cool so and i and i have to say it is peace of mind when you try to have to sleep at night with if you lived far or if your baby was not doing well they had a room where the parents could stay need be which is which was really nice here feature about that that they offered at that hospital i don't know if every hospital has hospital so it's number one to go to and i would recommend anybody because there were some mothers i got to meet thank you for coming from new york every day wow because their babies were sent there yeah so then i thought like a terrible mom because i couldn't get there but all the nurses were like don't you dare come in tomorrow during the snowstorm right it's i was very thankful for the camera as i and then i felt bad because when i went in the next morning i could tell she noticed i wasn't there i notice so what is some advice we want to give some new parents spoke to parents of premature babies that me that might help them some advice that i would give honestly there you could read any  that they offer and have but nothing's going to prepare you for having a baby expression of premature aids and there's no could cut or method you just have to have patience  and your kid's going to teach you you're not going to teach a kid the kid's going to teach you basically when they're hungry so tell you you can't force them you know the doctor is going to say every two hours every three hours feed the baby they're going to take what they want to take you feed them and they don't want to go forward up and then that's not going to help you so you're going to learn from them just like they're going to learn from you patience if you're frustrated with the baby in the ba it's an every it's hard and going to the net you i would definitely suggest meeting other moms or dads getting to know those around you and sharing stories and because it makes the nick you having having a friends and that you kind of makes a little easier and it makes you feel like you're in a family there rather than just roommates in a sense right now the tough part is every every baby you nick you is going to be completely different with the problems that they have and it concerns they have now while you're all in a critical condition let's say your baby's going to breathe ok but another child may not be able to breathe on their own and so you've got two very different problems and concerns and and it's tough because there's a lot of things that are unique to each premature right and you got to be sensitive to america's we were very unlucky in the sense that penny just had to grow there were a lot of other parents there that i got to meet that weren't in as happy as a boat as we were and with it yes she was premature and yes there were you know a little bit of worries behind it but compared to other babies we were the last we were so lucky and it it it's sad to think that there are other babies that are truly struggling out there just to to breathe well and unfortunately some of them in in that situation don't always get over the hurdles and do better and that's a very real thing that i think we have to acknowledge in and you know show sympathy for for people that are out there right now who have a child in nick you they're saying we're not sure if this is going to get better or you know you just pray and you cross your fingers and and that's very tough yeah it's very tough thing yeah and that's why i think having support not not only with your spouse and family but in the nicu family is a key thing because bonding with someone who is going through some not messer the exact same this happens what should i do and they had no problem answering any question i think this might be a stupid question and everybody says there's no stupid questions right you know it's bonding with the staff was the best one of the things i did we got to mom as much as i hate saying that we were the nicu because it's a hard time it helped me transition into motherhood because i got to have that extra helping hand to help me to learn more about how to take care of such a young tiny little baby as opposed to my friend who had a nine pound two ounce or you know like i had three pounds love an ounce to take care of it big difference when it comes to learning things you know were three months old and we're still a newborn where a lot of other babies are well out of newborn you know it's there are differences when it comes to things and it's nice to have that support in the background  just real quick because of having premiers a premature baby or use more success susceptible to have another two or baby yes i already spoke to my doctors about it if we do have another baby there is a good chance that it could be premature i will be automatically considered a high risk maternal pregnancy for next time around and the doctors would do extra tests extra precautions and sure because i know another person who went to the same o b as i did and they were high risk and they didn't have to swap out so i'm very thankful because i love my o b g y n which is a very colorful thing because you know  so it's nice to have a doc's office that's very honest with you and toes you now rather then i'm pregnant guess what your high risk so it's nice to know ahead of time so that way when we take into consideration if and when we have another child we kind of know what we're going in for does penny still have any medical problems or concerns that you're dealing with now is she's continuing to grow yes we're three months old like i said and she still has pretty serious and reflux issues  we have to take extra caution we go to the doctor during month two we went through the doctor weekly for weigh ins she wasn't gaining weight quickly she only gained half an ounce in a week which is not as you know weight gain for babies that's not a lot at all so we had to you know up we went from breast milk to now formula with the extra calories and all that kind of stuff so the main thing is we have reflux issues because she ends up choking from it where she has her back and tightens her neck and basically stops breathing and it's absolutely terrifying so we're working with her doctors to figure out what can we do to help that because there's nothing worse than surviving the nic but then you know having the whole choking issue which is it is really terrifying to see your baby choke for all over nothing that's that was my next question real quick because we are going to have to start to wrap it up soon but so are you allowed to breastfeed premature babies they actually really highly recommend it we i was that we weren't able to latch but i was able to pump and give her via bottle while we tried for latching a few times but she just couldn't take to it and i don't want to kind of fuss around too much i know some people are like one hundred percent breastfeeding i'm only going to do it this way i'm not going to pump but you know  that is best as long as she's getting fed that's all that matters and i would pump every three hours i would bring it to the nicu they would freeze some i had over two hundred bottles in the freezer at home so she was getting fed strictly  milk until about a month ago when we needed that cowrie boost but no they say that the nutrients and all is actually great for baby and to kangaroo i don't know if you know what kangaroo carries but for those who don't it's when you put in contact with the bee and it's not only great for bonding but it's great for milk flow for your breastfeeding but it also helps the baby with their developments so we would kangaroo in the mini q they put up little walls around similar to what the background out how to do best and we wish you and your husband kristen hanny all the very best we know it's just going to go uphill from here and we're so thankful you shared your story before we wrap it up is there a message you want to give to any parents that end up in the ne