The Preemie Primer Book by Jennifer Gunter

Having a premature baby is a crash course in both medicine and health economics. Parents face complex information, a daunting environment, difficult decisions, and overwhelming grief and worry. As an OB/GYN I have delivered hundreds of premature babies, but I really understand the heartbreak and challenges of prematurity because I am also the mother of triplet boys born extremely prematurely. Sadly, one of my sons died and my surviving boys were hospitalized for months.

 

What do you do when you have four filing cabinets full of research on prematurity, notebooks full of observations and therapies, the keen eye of an experienced physician, the inside scoop on the health care system, the experience of a mother who has been there, and breathing space now that your premature children have not been admitted to the hospital for 18 months and counting? The decision was easy: to share my unique insight into prematurity and provide a complete and practical resource for parents - a step-by-step guide through the premature baby experience from pregnancy through kindergarten and beyond.

 

The birth of a premature baby is like being dropped in a foreign country without a guide, a map, or language skills. The Preemie Primer: A Complete Guide for Parents of Premature Babies is the guidebook every family with a premature baby should own. It is the book I wished I could have read when my boys were born.

August 10th, 2010

The life and times of Momma Jumbo

Victor loves to give nicknames, and they usually stick. He is “Bear,” his twin brother Oliver is “O-leach” or “The Bug,” my husband is “Lollipop,” and I (sadly enough) am “Momma Jumbo.”

I know. It’s a tough moniker to swallow. When he first heard it, my husband smartly stifled his laughter. “Shut up,” I snarled, “You’re ‘Lollipop.’”

After a few days of him yelling, “Momma Jumbo!” in the supermarket aisles and at the playground, I had to intervene.

I do not fit the traditional princess mold in appearance or attitude, so I understand why I didn’t get “Cinderella” or “Snow White” (even though I do have dark hair!). If he was stuck on a cartoon character, there was Jessie from Toy Story 2, or, heck, I’d even take Dory. My son just shook his head. “No,” he said, they were not right.

Fortunately my son does not know about my lifelong preoccupation with my weight and my crazy body image issues. He does not see the look on my face when I step on the scale or when I try on a pair of pants, desperately hoping that a size twelve will fit nor does he see the my look of utter devastation when I realize I will need a size fourteen.

He doesn’t know that even when I am at my thinnest, because I am so tall that I still feel large. He doesn’t know that I secretly long to be petite (like a Disney Princess), to be the type of woman who is easily swept up into the arms of a Prince Charming. I admit I have picked up a romance novel or two, wistfully gazing at the cover. When I semi-jokingly ask my husband to pick me up, I see the momentary look of panic on his face.

For all these reasons, unknown to my little boy, his nickname for me hits just a bit too close to home – not that I can think of any woman, regardless of her size, who really wants to be compared to an elephant, especially one called “Jumbo,” even if she is Dumbo’s mom.

I sigh and ask him again, “Why Momma Jumbo?”

He looks me straight in the eye and simply says, “Because Momma Jumbo loves her baby more than anything in the world, and that’s how you love me.”

I am speechless. Momma Jumbo it is.

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