Looking back at the birth of our son Jack, it's easy to see just how lucky we were. It all started on a beautiful fall afternoon. I was preparing for a rare Saturday night shift at work when my wife Carolyn, 31 weeks pregnant, returned home from a walk in the neighborhood. She was laughing when she came through the door. "I know you lose bladder control as you get bigger, but this is crazy. I was just walking along and all of the sudden I was peeing all over myself."

We had just had our first birthing class - the one where they show you several birth videos that all begin with the woman's water breaking. So I was more than a little suspicious. "Are you sure your water didn't break?" I asked. Carolyn didn't think there had been enough water for that to have been the case. Still, I was worried. But she insisted everything was fine and that I should go to work. I agreed to go, but only if she agreed to call her midwife.

I had barely gotten to the office when my cell phone rang. "The midwife wants me to come to the hospital," Carolyn said. Suddenly, my heart was racing. I quickly returned home and picked her up, then headed to the VCU Medical Center in downtown Richmond.

Carolyn was examined by a midwife and an OBGYN nurse. Her water had broken - they quickly determined there had been a small tear in her uterine wall and she was losing amniotic fluid. She wasn't in labor, but they told us the vast majority of women go into labor within 72 hours of their water breaking. An ultrasound showed there was still amniotic fluid in the womb, and the baby keeps replenishing that fluid. Carolyn was admitted to the hospital. The nurse and midwife explained that while they wanted the baby to stay put for as long as possible, they wouldn't do anything other than put Carolyn on strict bed rest and hope for the best. Under the best-case scenario, the baby would be born at 34 weeks, so no matter what the baby was going to be premature.

I know Carolyn was nervous and scared, and rightly so. But I felt at peace, knowing that we were in a great place to have a "premie." Carolyn’s sister, Tricia, had given birth to a premature son six years earlier at VCU Medical Center - then known as the Medical College of Virginia - so I knew how good the hospital's care is. Tricia’s son Ethan, born at 31 weeks, spent four months in the hospital and is now a healthy and happy first-grader.

That was in the back of my mind - as well as the fact that we have several other thriving "premies" in our two immediate families - as the admitting nurse and midwife told us that the first thing that they would do was give Carolyn two "miracle steroid shots" - courtesy of the development programs of the March of Dimes - that would greatly aid the development of the baby's lungs. At 31 weeks, they explained to us, that's the one really important organ that hasn't developed.

The steroid shots had to be spaced 24 hours apart, so the first goal was to make it to Sunday. After that, we'd take things one day at a time, with each day the baby stayed in the womb the better. Carolyn was admitted to the OBGYN ICU, where the round-the-clock care was simply fantastic. The nurses, never far away, were very friendly, helpful and informative. The doctors, many of them among the leaders in the neonatal care field, were a calming influence and very forthcoming. That all helped relax Carolyn.

Carolyn made it to the next day, and got the second steroid shot. And then she made it another day, and she was transferred out of the ICU and onto the maternity ward. Carolyn stayed there for the next 10 days, bonding with the little baby growing inside her. Just before 10 p.m. on Sept. 29, Carolyn gave birth to a 17-inch, 4 lb, 6 oz baby boy named John Bernard Finnegan II. "Jack" was quickly whisked away to the neo-natal intensive care unit, but the doctors assured us he was a very healthy baby.

Jack never needed help breathing - those steroid shots really were miraculous - and he was out of the NICU and into the normal nursery the next day. We were surprised how quickly he got out of NICU, but it turned out he wasn't quite ready for life in the real world. At just more than 32 weeks, he still didn't have the suck-swallow-breathe technique down. That meant he was burning more calories nursing than he was taking in, which in turn meant he couldn't maintain his body heat.

So it was back to incubators and heat lamps of the NICU, where the doctors and nurses do incredible work around the clock to save the tiniest of babies. It was a temporary setback for Jack. The staff kept telling us that once he made it to 34 weeks, he'd have this suck-swallow-breathe thing mastered and start eating more and putting on weight.

They were right, almost to the day - as soon as Jack reached 34 weeks, he started doubling his intake. Soon, he was taking a full bottle at feedings and putting on weight. Within a week, Jack came home. He's six months old now, and he hasn't been back to the hospital other than for regular visits or to participate in a special RVS program at VCU. He's getting big - he's already on the charts, and he has big rolls around his thighs and chubby red cheeks. So, yes, we were extremely lucky to have an organization like the March of Dimes supporting places like VCU Medical Center, where the doctors and nurses did incredible work to bring our premature son into this wonderful world.