Having a premature baby is heartbreaking. It's scary, hard, sad, isolating, traumatic, and something that no one deserves to experience. But preemie parents know something that others don't. They know that, even despite all the pain and struggle and tears and sleepless nights, having a premature baby is still really, really wonderful. Having a premature baby might be one of the hardest things that has ever happened to us, but it's also one of the best, too.

Unexpectedly our little miracle Dominic was born at 25 weeks and 3 days, 3 months early and only weighing 1lb 14oz on November 26th, 2013. I never knew that babies could be born this early until it happened to me and it was a life changing experience for our family especially since our first son was born at full term. The NICU was Dominic's home for 3 months where they took such good care of him when we were not able to be there. He had his good days and bad days and it felt like we were on a never ending roller coaster, but Dominic never gave up and kept on fighting. He finally was able to come home on March 1st, 2014, 1 week before his actual due date weighing almost 7lbs. He came home on a monitor and some oxygen for a little over a month, he has chronic lung disease which will go away on its own and Retinopathy of Prematurity which is an eye problem, but went away. I had to leave my job to take care of him and be a stay at home mom. We are fundraising for a  great cause that is very dare to our hearts and was Dominic's 1st home for 3 months. With this money they can do so much more to the best NICU. While we were there they never had enough nice comfortable chairs in each NICU to do kangaroo care ( a technique practiced on newborn, usually preterm, infants wherein the infant is held, skin-to-skin, with an adult) with our baby. So with this money they will be able to purchase more chairs like this that cost a lot of money to put into every room in the NICU.