This wasn't supposed to happen to ME. I'd done all the right things – eaten the right foods, taken the proper vitamins, and exercised. It had been an uneventful pregnancy so far. Yet on May 30, 1999, without any warning, our son Ethan was born at 31 weeks, weighing 3.76 pounds.

Ethan was blessed to have the advantage of surfactant therapy – a chemical protein that kept his lungs from collapsing – to overcome his respiratory distress. This enabled him to breathe on his own, not requiring a respirator for very long, which helped him avoid long-term vision and other problems.

I remember first looking at our son hooked up to all the monitors and breathing through a tube on a respirator and being scared to touch him. Luckily my sister, an NICU nurse, came to the rescue along with the wonderful NICU staff at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital. Our frequent visits and the skin-to-skin contact with Ethan benefited him (medically) and us (emotionally).

Just when we thought things were getting better and hoped he would soon come home with us, he developed complications. The diagnosis was NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis) and he was fed formula intravenously while his bowel tried to recover on its own. When it did not heal, the surgeons removed four cm of his damaged intestine. Then came the waiting. We saw him progress from an isolette (incubator) to a "big boy" crib with a "great view" of downtown and the river.

During his stay in the NICU, Ethan had his highs and lows. There were a couple of times I cried and wondered why this was happening to him and to us. But, most of the time I knew he was where he needed to be in order to get better and thrive. I had complete faith in the NICU staff and I never doubted that he would come through. Then one beautiful fall day, 113 days after he was born, we took Ethan home.

Now Ethan is in kindergarten and a typical five-year old, in to superheroes, cars, and books. He was lucky. Besides being a little on the small side, Ethan has no developmental or physical issues related to his premature birth. Without the scar across his stomach it would be hard to tell he'd had such an ordeal. As for Ethan and his friends, they think it's "cool!"