Hi Susan, I was just reading your blog about your son being premature & I can relate to that. I have a young son, Joshua, who was born almost 15 weeks prem & weighed only 810grams at birth. He was born at 25 weeks & 4 days, and spent 15 weeks in Hosptital before finally coming home with me. I was actually pretty lucky, because I went into premature labour at 25 weeks & was hospitalised & given medication to stop the contractions & steroids to mature babys lungs. But 4 days later Josh was born on Saturday 28th of January 2006. He wasn't due until 9th of May!! He was one of the smallest/earliest babies in the Special Care Nursery, but there were other babies that weighed less & had lots more problems than my son. He battled a skin & blood infection in the first month (had 3 or 4 blood transfusions & strong course of antibiotics which required new drips every 24hours, so he's got scars all over his arms & legs).We had weekly, then fortnightly & monthly check-ups at Princess Margaret Childrens Hospital with the eye specialist, but after 6 months Josh was cleared & didn't need laser surgery or glasses. He's about 10 months corrected age now (just over 13 months old from birth) and has caught up with his weight (12.5kgs) but we won't know if he has any learning disabilities until he's older & starts school. But while Josh was in Hospital we made friends with some of the other parents & their prem babies...I spoke to one mum a few days ago, she had a little 535gram baby girl, Ava, who celebrated her first birthday this weekend but was not due until 9th of June 2006. Apparently she is still very small & petite in size (still wearing size 00) but she's crawling & very social. So it's amazing how differently these prem babies grow up after their very premature start to life!!

~ Mellanie