Ode to preemies

A friend sent this to me. It's a lighter version of a preemie parents experience. As serious and hard as preemie parenting is, it's nice to find a lighter side sometimes.

Jefferey's Poem
By Garrison Keillor

When I first saw you, kid, you were tiny and thin,
And slimy and red and your head was mushed in,
I say to your mother, "He looks kind of sloppy,
And two pounds four ounces ain't big for a crappie."

But something about you, the look in your eyes,
Said you fully intended to grow to full size,
They slapped your backside and you let out a cry,
And I said, "We will keep him, at least we shall try."

Some babies are born in nine months, by the clock,
Some babies are born, and they sit up and talk,
Some babies are born, and no doctor is there.
Some babies are born, on a wing and a prayer.

Poor little fetus, as big as your hand,
Poor little fish thrown up on dry land,
Who came in April, though he had til July,
Too small to live and too precious to die.

They shipped you downstairs to the big Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit's computerized cradle
And attached you to wires and stuck you with tubes
Monitored closely by digital cubes.

And thanks to the latest neonatal therapeusis
And regular basting with greases from gooses
And hot chicken soup intravenously fed
You did not fade away, you grew up instead.

We'll always remember those months that you spent
With tubes in your head in the oxygen tent
And the mask on your face with the wires attached,
Sweet little boy who was only half-hatched.

I'm sure you'll grow up to mature and extend,
To six feet six inches and become a tight end,
But I'll always remember each doctor and nurse in
The NICU who helped make you a person,
The kid who crash landed, who was carried away,
Who survived it, this bundle we bring home today.