You’ve just had a baby, and you are leaving the hospital. But instead of leaving with a cart full of balloons and flowers, new baby in arms, wheeled out in a wheelchair and attended to by the proud papa, your scene is different. You are walking out, no flowers, no balloons. No baby. You are blinking at the sunlight, glancing at your watch, anxious to get back into the hospital as soon as possible. Another new mom is leaving with her baby, and you stare with unconcealed jealousy. Why? Because your baby is still in there. You had a premature baby, and the nurses whisked him away to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) before you could even get your glasses on to have a good look at him. How long will he be in there? No one will tell you. That’s because no one really knows. It’s all up to your baby.

Having a baby is a wonderful, life-changing event. But having a premature baby is an anxiety-ridden, nerve wracking, life-changing event. Even while you wonder if your baby will be okay, you recover nicely and you are forced to leave the hospital. Nothing compares to the heartache of leaving your baby in the care of nurses while you go home, no longer pregnant, without your child. And through it all, you can be overwhelmed with mixed feelings of guilt, sorrow, terror, and depression even as you rejoice and try to celebrate the birth of your newborn.

I’m not going to even try to tell you what will happen to your baby. Every baby is different, and no one can predict. Instead, I’m writing this to help you get through the emotional journey of stopping your outside life and beginning a temporary life in the NICU. The change in your life is sudden, immediate, and completely necessary when you have a baby in residence there.

It is not all that uncommon. Approximately 480,000 babies will be born prematurely this year. Many of us who have endured it are now fiercely devoted to the charity, March of Dimes, for its work in finding causes of and in the prevention of premature births.