Gretchen is back with Mighty Littles for the second half of her story. Last week, we talked about her birth story; delivering her son by emergency C-section at 23 weeks.

This week, Gretchen talks about her son’s NICU stay and her life after the NICU. Her son Alex was born weighting 580g, and was 11 inches long. She was quoted a 3% chance of survival and 1% chance that he would be “normal”. And yet, Alex had other plans. His biggest issues in the NICU were related to anemia and blood infections.

Gretchen and I also talk about the effect the NICU had on her relationship with Alex’s dad, what is like to coparent during a pandemic, and the guilt that some parents can have when the outcome of prematurity is better than expected.