There But for the Grace of God

There but for the grace of God (go I).

Proverb. I would likely have experienced or done the same bad thing if God had not been watching over me.


But I believe God was watching over this little girl and her family. And the unthinkable still happened.

After reading an article in People magazine about Matt Logelin and his daughter Maddy, I've been following his blog www.mattlogelin.com. Recently he blogged that another little girl that his daughter would play with, also named Maddie, had passed away. She had just turned a year old in November. You can read her story at www.remembermaddie.com. From briefly reading their family blog it seems that she developed some sort of respiratory infection. I can not begin to imagine what this family must be going through.

I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Things could have gone a much different way for both Parker and Quinn. Little Maddie was born 11 weeks premature. The boys were 9 1/2 weeks early. Little Maddie was 3lbs 1oz at birth, Quinn was 2lbs 7ozs. Little Maddie was even longer at birth than Quinn was by a whole inch. I realize numbers are just numbers. But believe me, when you have a child in the NICU those numbers get crunched in your mind eighteen different ways in order to convince yourself that everything will be ok.

It just goes to show, you start to let your guard down a bit and the unthinkable can happen. I've become so much more relaxed than I ever used to be regarding the boys and the dreaded germs, viruses, etc. On one hand I feel like they've really overcome and are immune to any health issues where prematurity is concerned. On the other I've still got some of that paranoia left over. After reading about Maddie I wonder if I should be so lax. Maybe I've been naive. There is a fine line between protecting your child and letting them just be a kid.

I want to make clear this post is not a 'thank goodness that's not us' type of post because it easily could have been. If anything, I hope that more people become aware of how widespread and heart wrenching prematurity can be. It's so easy to take things for granted. Thank God every day if you have a child who is healthy.

I would again ask, if you haven't done so already, to please consider donating to the March of Dimes. No amount is too small. For those of you who've already donated, thank you!