Germs: 1, Sonneks: 1

And we'd be perfectly content to leave it at that. Yesterday was a bit rough, as I did end up with a low-grade fever and some intestinal distress, but all that's left this afternoon is the cough. During the past 48 hours, I've had most of the symptoms of the flu, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I've heard it described. Perhaps I'd built up a partial immunity from the vaccine shot I received a week ago, or maybe it's just a cold. More importantly, it's been nearly three days since I started feeling out of sorts, and no one else in the house is sick yet.

Bryce has been at home with us for exactly two months today, and when you consider that period as a whole, he's doing remarkably well. One of the county nurses came to check up on him yesterday, and he's currently measuring 21.25" long and weighs 9.5 lbs. For his adjusted age of 2 months, he's moved up on the growth charts from the "< 3 percentile" to "5-10 percentile" with respect to his weight. Given his rocky start and how common it is for micro-preemies to have growth/feeding issues, I'd say that's cause to celebrate! His lungs are still clear as a bell, and we've had naught but false alarms on the apnea monitor for at least two weeks.

Some of you may have noticed that I added a little "Fight for Preemies" badge to the blog sidebar. This campaign is sponsored by the March of Dimes as part of Prematurity Awareness Month, and its goal is to raise awareness of the high cost and growing prevalence of premature birth. At first blush, it seems silly to think that blogging about our experience with prematurity can have any meaningful effect on the more general predicament. Also, I felt a bit foolish supporting such a campaign; although premature birth is a problem that has become near and dear to my heart, I recognize that there are many ills in the world (hunger, cancer, heart disease, war, etc) that have a much broader impact on humanity.

However, after further consideration, I realized that unlike these other crises, prematurity wasn't even on my radar until it happened to us. I literally had no idea that preterm birth was as common as it is (50,000 micro-preemies per year in the U.S.), nor that they had the medical technology to save these tiny babies' lives. If, by telling our little miracles' stories, we're able to make others aware of the problem, that sounds like a pretty good first step toward making prematurity a priority on the national agenda. I know I'm biased, but I'm fairly confident that the overwhelming majority of people would agree that it warrants far more attention than some of the "crises" currently being addressed by Congress (steroids in baseball, anyone?).

With that in mind, Christie and I consented to a feature story on our terrific twosome on the website growingyourbaby.com. A fellow micro-preemie parent is a writer for the site, and she asked if she could use Bryce and Chloe's story as one of her Prematurity Awareness Month profile stories. If you're reading this, everything in the article is probably old news, but check it out if you've got a free minute! Print this post