WHAT WE DIDN'T EXPECT

Parents share their emotional experiences of preterm births.

When her son was born at 29 weeks, journalist Schreiber yearned for stories about how other parents dealt with the frightening, disorienting event. Making her book debut, she collects 17 moving essays from mothers, fathers, and even one man who had been born a preemie. About 10% of babies are born prematurely for a variety of reasons, including preeclampsia (abnormally high blood pressure that threatens both mother and child), multiple births (a majority of twins are born early), and family history. For all the writers, preterm birth, sometimes by C-section, was a shock: Suddenly, they were confronted by a tiny, underdeveloped being who needed around-the-clock monitoring. “The responsibility of caring for someone so fragile and not knowing how long he’d have to be in the NICU alone was weighing heavily on me,” writes “a broke, young African American woman who was having her first child hundreds of miles away from her family and who was panicked at the idea of anything less than a perfect birth experience.” Some relied on faith to sustain them: “Just as I needed every mind and hand that played a role in caring for her in our tangible world, I needed the divine,” writes a mother whose daughter, born at 25 weeks, weighed 1 pound, 13 ounces. While fathers make up a minority of the contributors, their experiences are no less profound than those of mothers, but support could be lacking. “When a baby is born,” one father writes, “dads can be overlooked while mothers are showered with attention and praise.” Some parents felt overwhelmed by medical technology and the need to master protocols after they and their baby were discharged. When Washington Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal gave birth in Mumbai, India, though, she encountered a hospital with limited resources and knowledge about low-birthweight babies, which inspired her later to help design a comprehensive Medicare for All bill in the U.S.

Affecting essays reach out to new and prospective parents.