The Story of Baby Roy

by Thomas R. King

My son was born nine weeks early. He was due April 24, but was born Feb. 18.

I will never forget when I first saw that little 2 lb, 5 oz. baby. My wife had toxemia and had to stay in the ICU for 24 hours. When she woke up and they would not allow her to see the baby, she said, "But how will I breastfeed him?" The nurses explained that she wouldn't be able to because she was on morphine and this was not good for the baby.

As soon as they moved her to a regular room, she insisted on pumping to get her milk supply up. Within a couple of days, she refused to take the pain medication and started pumping into small bottles.

The nurses informed us that he would not be released from the NICU until his original due date. My wife told me, "You wait, our little man is getting a little of his mama's stubbornness every time he gets my breast milk."

She was determined he would have breastmilk. She even pumped so much that we had to buy a deep freeze to store it all. They started the baby off when he was about a week old with just one cc of breastmilk. Every day we would get excited as the cc's were added and he accepted them fine. Eventually he worked up to a 2 oz. bottle and was sucking from a nipple.

I will never forget the day they told us he weighed 4 lbs and was ready to come home. My wife smiled at me through teary eyes and patted her breast saying, "See, mama's milk got him through."

Our son came home on March 24, 2000, a full month before they said he would be able to. They had no reason for him to stay. He never lost weight and was off the monitors except for the ones they keep on babies until they leave.

Roy is now a healthy 18 pounds and continues to grow like a weed. He has had one minor ear infection, otherwise he has not even had a sniffle. My wife swears it is because he received breast milk for the first six months of his life (unfortunately she dried up early).

Now we are expecting our second child and I am not near as nervous as I was with our first. As far as I am concerned, I have a beautiful red head whose breasts hold the secret to life. I hope other's will read this and give their babies that special elixir. Formula is good for babies, but I honestly believe that mother's milk is straight from God.