BOOKS

 Memoirs for NICU Parents

From Hope to Joy

In her memoir, Jennifer Degl brings her readers on an emotional roller coaster: from the decision to get pregnant with her fourth child and nearly dying four times during her pregnancy—to the birth of her daughter, Joy, at 23 weeks gestation, and this tiny baby’s fight to survive.

 

Girl in Glass

Deanna Fei was just five-and-a-half months pregnant when she inexplicably went into labor. Minutes later, she met her tiny baby who clung to life support inside a glass box. Fei was forced to confront terrifying questions: How to be the mother of a child she could lose at any moment. But as she watched her daughter fight for her life, Fei discovered the power of the mother-child bond at its most elemental.

 

Preemie: lessons in love, life and motherhood

The first time Kasey was wheeled into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), nothing prepared her for what she saw: a tiny, fragile baby in a tangle of tubes and wires. All at once, Kasey was confronted with a new and terrifying reality that would test the limits of love, family, and motherhood.


 

Juniper

Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks' gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love -- to save her, or to let her go?