NEWSBYJANE MCCASLAND

I won’t lie, I love getting homemade cards from my kids, and flowers from my husband.  But every mom knows, thebest Mother’s Day gift is healthy and happy children.  More of us than you might expect have come close to losing that chance.

I was not your typical mother of a micro-preemie baby.  I was 32, well-educated, and had top-flight prenatal care at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.  But in a matter of 24 hours they almost lost me and my firstborn.

Kate was born 15 weeks early and she weighed less than 1 pound 7 ounces.  She was 12 inches long, about the size of a Barbie doll. She spent 112 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, and most of that was on the critical list.