POST ISLA'S STORY

Isla is now a healthy 15-year-old attending grade 10!

You'd never know her start in life was so chaotic ...

Both Isla's parents are grateful for all the support they received before Isla
was born, during the 5 months in the hospital and after.

We hope you or your loved ones get great benefit from Isla's Story.

PREFACE FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION

Susan and I were your typical working couple. Susan worked in the film industry and had 70 hour work weeks and I was a computer consultant with my own small business. Then the film industry went through a bit of a slowdown and as we were getting up in age the question again arose “do we have children?”

Not an easy question to answer then nor was it an easy question to answer when both of us were working a lot. We finally decided that there was no “good time” to have a child (the cliché intact) so we planned around Susan’s film schedule and started trying. It was only 2 months later that we were pregnant and our joy started

.
When all tests came back negative for problems at the three month mark, we told our immediate families the good news and their shock was mostly related to the fact that they had long ago given up on us giving them grandchildren.

It was days later that we started what would be 2 1/2 months of near weekly trips to the prenatal triage at the hospital and constant concern that we had miscarried. Needless to say, when we went into the hospital on January 13th, 2006 and Susan was admitted, we were drawn into a world that we knew nothing about, the world of possibly having a premature baby, born at only 25 1/2 weeks.

The doctors were surprised during the 5 days of being at the hospital that all seemed to go back to what we had felt was “ normal” and they mistakenly decided to discharge Susan.

We were back a mere 8 hours later and shortly afterwards we were the parents of Isla, born at 26 weeks and 5 days and weighing 2 pounds (910 grams).

This book is the daily log that Susan and I wrote during the 5 months of Isla’s stay at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, the largest neonatal unit in Canada.