Last summer, one of my husband’s college friends, Steve, came to visit with his wife and two children, a little boy a bit older than my daughter and a baby. They stayed with us for a couple of days and we all had a nice time, visiting the Long Island Sound and just relaxing. It was the first time I met his wife, Jennifer, and we hit if off right away. The Pumpkin fell in love with the baby. A few months later, we found out they were expecting a new baby who was due in June. But something went wrong. They’ve spent the last several days in the hospital delivering the baby, who died. We’ve been getting e-mail updates about the experience, including a last e-mail that came at 2 a.m. this morning with details about the keepsake box with a lock of hair and some photos that they brought home instead of a baby.

It’s been hard to get Jennifer and Steve out of my mind. I could easily have ended up with a similar box if it weren’t for the life-saving treatment my daughter received at White Plains Hospital Center.

Four years ago on April 20, I went into the hospital showing symptoms of preeclampsia, a disease that affects about 5 percent of pregnancies and poses risk for both mother and baby. I hadn’t read about preeclampsia before and didn’t really know what the doctors were so concerned about. I had been showing the signs of preeclampsia for a couple of weeks and had even spent a weekend on bedrest, but the doctors didn’t use that word yet. Here’s a clue: If your hands are so swollen that you lose sensation, it’s time to worry. Swollen ankles in pregnancy: Not so much.

My first night I was dazed, suffering from a horrible cold, unable to sleep. Over the next few days, the signs were clear that the doctors expected me to deliver my daughter early, but wanted to wait as long as possible. I was given steroid shots to mature my daughter’s lungs, moved to a private room and ordered to rest on my left side. In retrospect, I think I went into a bit of denial. After my cold cleared up by the weekend, I actually felt really great. It was sunny outside and I didn’t feel like staying in bed. It seemed absurd that I would actually have the baby that early, and so I discounted the idea, especially since I felt so healthy. The swelling had gone down and I didn’t have other classic symptoms, like a headache or pain in my abdomen. (I found out later that these are important symptoms of something going wrong. At the time, I just knew that nurses came into my room every four hours to ask me, “Do you have a headache? Any pain in your abdomen?”)

Every day, I rode a wheelchair down to radiology and got a look at my baby, who was healthy but tiny. Things were going so well that after a week and a half, on May 2, my doctor during rounds that morning even talked about maybe letting me go home on bedrest for a while. That was before he got the results of that morning’s blood draw. (Oh yeah, every morning I gave about five vials. Fun stuff.)

Later that afternoon, I had just showered and was sitting up in bed, making phone calls and relaxing when a phalanx of nurses from labor and delivery strode into my room with a gurney and told me I was coming with them to deliver the baby. This was a shock. My own nurse came in behind them and said the doctor had been trying to reach me, but I had been on the phone. My bloodwork showed that I had developed a complication of preeclampsia called HELLP Syndrome, which basically meant that internal organs like my liver weren’t doing so hot. The baby had to come out, or else we both would be in trouble.

After panicked calls to reach my husband to come as quickly as possible and to my sister-in-law for reassurance, I was prepped for a C-section. That evening, my daughter was born at 26 weeks, five days, gestation. She weighed just 1 pound, 13.4 ounces, or 834 grams. I didn’t even get to see her born because I was so swollen the anesthesiologist couldn’t get a needle into my spine. I had general anesthesia. I didn’t get to see her for more than 24 hours because I was stuck in bed in a haze thanks to a magnesium sulfate drip. I didn’t hold her for almost a week because she was so delicate. I just sat by her incubator, lightly touching her with my hand and talking to her. Her entire hand was the size of the tip of my pinky finger. The first days were so scary that it’s hard to even describe what it was like. The first week of a preemie’s life will determine what happens for the rest of it. And for us, the news was all good. She didn’t need a ventilator, and was breathing with just positive air pressure. No bleeding in the brain. Lots of pee. A feisty attitude. (That hasn’t changed.) I got to hold her for the first time six days after she was born. It happened to be Mother’s Day. Part of me is still in that chair, holding my swaddled baby for the first time, oblivious to everything else. One of the neonatologists walked up to me and started to talk to me about how well she was doing, but I ignored him, repeating over and over, “My baby, my baby.”

Today, she weighs about 33 pounds and is as tall as some 5-year-olds. And when she climbs into my lap for snuggles, the world still disappears and my mind repeats, “My baby, my baby.”

On Sunday, for the fourth year, I will be lacing up my sneakers and heading to White Plains to walk with hundreds of other parents who know exactly how I felt in that first moment I held my daughter. Parents of preemies never take a day or a minute for granted. We know how easily we could have come home with nothing but heartbreak. We are thrilled for the chance to help out the March of Dimes, which is committed to making sure that more babies come home with their parents. I pester my family, friends and coworkers for donations because I know that every dollar raised will go to programs to prevent premature birth and to make sure that the ones who are born early, like my Pumpkin, will live.

While I was writing this, my daughter came over to me to give me a hug and show off the blue ponytail holder her grandmother put in her (long and messy) hair today. I have never cut her hair, which is below her waist. I hadn’t realized until this moment why I haven’t, even though I know that it would be nice to have a lock of the baby blond at the tips before the whole head turns darker. I don’t need a keepsake. I have my baby. I’m marching on Sunday so that other moms can say the same.

It’s 2:18 a.m. and I just made the cranberry sauce. Oh, and I threw in a load of wash. My wash, that is. I had no choice if I hope to have something fresh to wear in seven hours when it will be time to get dressed to drive to my sister-in-law’s house in Albany. Pumpkin’s dress has been ready on a hanger in her closet for weeks. Such is my life.

Some moms — and you know who you are — seem to effortlessly keep it all together. You look great. Your hair isn’t always in a ponytail. You’ve actually managed to dig out your winter clothes so you don’t have to wear a summer shirt in November. Best of all, you’re calm. You never say things like, “Sweetheart, if you go upstairs and read books quietly with Grandma while mommy tries to write a story, I’ll give you pudding later.” Then there are moms like me. Perennially running late. Trying to do too much and getting only five out of 10 things accomplished. So, tomorrow while Pumpkin will be wearing a cute blue velvet holiday dress, I’ll be schlepping in some jeans. Jeans that aren’t loose like I’d hoped because I haven’t strictly followed the South Beach Diet or gotten back on the treadmill. I won’t be wearing any makeup because in a cleaning fit I threw away all the old stuff I bought back in spring 2005 and I haven’t replaced it. (Or used the gift certificate for Sephora my mom gave me in April 2006.)

Running my house and my family is a full-time job. The only problem is I have another full time job: This one. And when something’s got to give, it’s usually taking care of me. But yet, but yet, even though it’s now 2:25 a.m. and I probably won’t sleep more than four hours. And even though I’ll be the sloppiest mom at my family’s Thanksgiving party. And even though I know I’m far from perfect, I can’t help but sit here and feel so grateful for this messed up, harried life. My child is sleeping in her crib snuggled up with her Elmo doll. My husband will be waking at 5:30 to clean the car and make a dent on the toy litter that’s stretching from my office through the living and dining rooms all the way to the kitchen. My mom will probably come a half hour early this morning and I can get her to file Pumpkin’s fingernails. Most of all, I’m simply thankful to be a mom to Pumpkin, who has been in this world for three years this month. Granted, she was smaller than a grain of rice three years ago, but still — she was alive and my world was changed forever, even if I didn’t know it yet.

So, on this Thanksgiving, I want to say thank you to whoever is reading this blog. Thank you for joining our little community of parents who just want to share the miracle that is our everyday lives. My theory is that parents like to complain about our long days (and occasional nights) and the hard parts because if we talked about what it’s really like, we’d sound like lunatics. “I am so happy to be changing this dirty diaper” don’t sound like the words of a normal person to somebody who hasn’t been a mom or dad. But I remember on the day we brought Pumpkin home from the hospital after she spent nine weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit when she was born three months early. I said into the camcorder: “You need a diaper change. I am so happy to be changing your diaper.” It was me and not a nurse who got to wipe that little bum. I was finally going to be Pumpkin’s full-time mom. And so when she comes to me and says, “Mama, poop,” I’m still that happy. I get to be a mom. If sometimes my other full-time job means that I have to make cranberry sauce at 2 in the morning, so be it.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll share my secret recipe for cranberry sauce. As for life, I can only say: Be grateful for the diapers because where there’s poop, there’s a child.

Julie’s Cranberry Sauce

1 12 ounce container frozen apple juice concentrate
1 package fresh cranberries
1/2 cup port wine
1/2 cup sugar (If you like it really sweet, make it 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix apple juice, cranberries, wine and sugar in a stainless steel pot. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 10 to 13 minutes, until syrup starts to look gel-ish. Remove from heat. Add spices. Pour into a heat-safe dish. Cool. Refrigerate until ready to use. (I’ll also add, pour yourself a glass of port and eat a small dish of the runny sauce while it’s hot. Yum.)

When Pumpkin was born three months early, we had in our possession exactly one sundress and one ironic hipster onesie. The future nursery was still a guest room with a futon couch. We hadn’t bought even a rattle. Thanks to the generous help of family and dear friends, we were just about ready when it was time to bring Pumpkin home nine weeks later. But even on the morning we were picking her up from the hospital, I was squeezing a sheet on her cradle mattress while my husband was stocking the changing table with diapers and wipes.

Most women’s pregnancies don’t end early, but many still could use some help getting the nursery ready. Vera Kessler, a Scarsdale mom of 11-month-old Jeremy, was laid low by morning — and afternoon and evening — sickness during her pregnancy. She told me she sometimes went to bed at 4 o’clock. After her baby was born and she quit her job as a gradeschool teacher, Vera got an idea for a new career as a consultant to help expectant parents get their nurseries in shape. Since starting up in July, she’s helped more than two dozen moms with tasks as varied as cleaning and organizing the nursery to setting up custom gift registries to figuring out which baby swing’s rocking motion is most soothing. I wrote about her business, which is called Nursery 101, for today’s paper. You can read my story here. (Above is a picture taken by my colleague Tom Nycz of Vera organizing the closet of mom Sandrine Grab of Mount Kisco, who has a 6-week-old baby at home.)

What did the rest of you moms and dads do when it was time to get ready for baby? Did you find yourself wishing for an extra pair of hands? Would you ever hire a nursery consultant?

This time it’s for parents who may wonder if their children have special needs or developmental problems. It’s from a recent issue of the Child Care Aware online newsletter, which is sponsored by the “National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies”:http://www.naccrra.org.

The truth is parenting takes work, and some kids may need reinforcement in one area or another. “This article”:http://www.childcareaware.org/en/subscriptions/dailyparent/volume.php?id=52 gives parents some things to look for and some things to think about. Personally, I think these are areas we should all be assessing and looking at as parents, not only to evaluate our children’s needs, but to ensure that we are staying on top of their development.

With my own son, we’ve always had an eye out for anything out of the ordinary — perhaps to a fault. At one point my ex even worried that some of my son’s mannerisms were in fact “tics” that can be consistent with disorders like Tourettes Syndrome. So we brought it up with his doctor, and spoke to a specialist. As it turns out, he is simply hampered by bad sinuses (regrettably, it’s one of my genetic contributions to him, it would seem). But we were on it just the same.

The point is we checked it out with the pros. Which brings me back to my earlier point: It’s good to think about this stuff.

Even 17 isn’t enough for the Duggar family, who welcomed a new baby yesterday morning. Mom Michelle Duggar told reporters she’d “love to have more.” You may have heard of the Duggars, whose penchant for having kids has made them the subject of news stories and TV interviews as well as shows on the Discovery Health Network and The Learning Channel. Here’s a link to the Duggar’s own Web site, but it’s not loading right now — I suspect because of all the traffic generated by the birth of the littlest Duggar. Here’s a link to Google’s roundup of news stories about the birth.

As someone who became a mom in her late 30s, the chance for 7 — let alone 17 — kids is long gone. But I have to admit that a little part of me relates to Michelle and Jim Bob’s desire to simply accept all the “gifts” they receive. Although I was an only child who longed for siblings, I simply didn’t know I’d love being a mom as much as I do. If I did, I would have started earlier! My ideal family size — if I had a choice and were 10 years younger — would be 3 kids (5 if I were 15 years younger).

Of course, providing and caring for many kids is the challenge. Back when the Duggars had just (!) 14 children, mom Michelle told Parents magazine that the family spent $1,500 a month on food. They buy 50-pound bags of rice and beans! Of course, if you read more about the Duggars, you’ll learn they aren’t leading a typical American lifestyle. There aren’t weekly trips to the local McDonald’s — and I would be surprised to learn that even one of the kids has an iPod. The children are homeschooled, everyone chips in for chores and religion is a huge part of their daily lives.

If you had a choice — and money and age weren’t a consideration — how large would your family be?

Some special songs are not about love, sex, drugs or rock ‘n’ roll, but a result of the aforementioned – children. I’m not talking about songs to entertain kiddies, but songs that celebrate the arrival of children, that contain parents’ hopes for their offspring, and even those that record the less inspiring moments of parenthood.

I’m not sure if fewer of these songs are being written these days, or maybe it’s my disconnect from popular music. There was a time when almost every major singer-songwriter seemed to have a song on becoming a parent. The songs comprise an overlooked genre that we’re exploring now with the approach of Mother’s Day on Sunday and Father’s Day next month. Send me your favorites and maybe we can update this before Father’s Day.

Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”:http://steviewonder.free.fr/html/song32.html is the only song here that could be described as a hit. It’s a short song, only three verses, and a great take on the first thrill of becoming a parent. The song opens with a baby’s wail and proceeds:

“Isn’t she lovely,
Isn’t she wonderful,
Isn’t she precious,
Less than one minute old
I never thought that we’d be
Making one as lovely as she.
But isn’t she lovely made from loveâ€?

Taking this chronologically, at least for the newborn, next comes “First Born”:http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=106939 by the Canadian songwriters and sisters Kate & Anna McGarrigle. The song covers a lot of ground and apparently was inspired by the birth of Kate’s son, singer Rufus Wainwright:

“Daddy’s buddies send the flowers,
Mother’s friends have baby showers.�

The McGarrigles can’t help but worry about the kid’s future:

“Some of them make it,
Some of them don’t.
Some of then can’t,
Others won’t grow up.�

But they decide that’s for the future and return to celebrate the growing boy:

“Yes’s he’s the first born son,
That son of a gun,
Just hates to walk,
Just loves to run,
Just as fast as he can
With life held tight,
In the palm of his hand.�

Long before he wrote movie sound tracks, Randy Newman was a wonderful writer of satirical songs. When he took on parenthood in “Memo to My Son”:http://www.lyricsdepot.com/randy-newman/memo-to-my-son.html it was with self-effacing humor.

“I know you don’t think much of me,
But some day you’ll understand.
Wait’ll you learn how to talk, baby,
I’ll show you how smart I am.�

Paul Simon’s view in “St. Judy’s Comet”:http://www.lyricsdomain.com/16/paul_simon/st_judys_comet.html is similar:

“Well I sang it once,
Then I sang it twice,
I’m going to sing it three times more.
I’m going to stay til your resistance is overcome.
‘Cause if I can’t sing my boy to sleep
Well it makes your famous daddy look so dumb.�

In “That was your Mother”:http://www.lyricsdomain.com/16/paul_simon/that_was_your_mother.html, Simon makes it clear that kids don’t always seem like a blessing:

“Well that was your mother,
And that was your father,
Before you was born dude,
When life was great,
You are the burden, of my generation,
I sure do love you,
But let’s get that straightâ€?

“The Marvelous Toy”:http://www.mydfz.com/Paxton/lyrics/tmt.htm by Tom Patxon is part of the kiddy music cannon, but it’s also a song about the connection between generations. It ends with Paxton presenting to his son his own favorite childhood toy and it’s easy to imagine his son passing it on, too. The song was written when Paxton was in the Army and forced into typing training.

“Well, the years have gone by too quickly, it seems,
I have my own little boy.
And yesterday I gave to him my marvelous little toy.
His eyes nearly popped right out of his head,
And he gave a squeal of glee.
Neither one of us knows just what it is,
but he loves it, just like me.”

I can t imagine a better pray for one’s child than Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”:http://www.bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/forever.html. And for the record, it was written many years before an identically titled song by Rod Stewart.

“May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young.�

Many of these songs may not be known by new parents, the most recent was released about about 20 years ago. So if you are of a younger generation – or older one, for that matter – tell me your favorite song about parenthood.

There is no more wonderful gift in my life than my daughter, who is upstairs getting tucked into bed by her Dada as I write this. And when I thank God for her, I also remember the doctors and nurses who cared for her when she was born too early. So, it was with great recognition and understanding that I read the story of MariaClaudia Casella, a Harrison woman who is also the mom of a preemie. MariaClaudia, whose baby was born three months early and weighed just over 2 pounds, has found a tangible way to help White Plains Hospital Center, where her daughter was born in 1998.

MariaClaudia invented what she calls the First Comes Love Box. It is intended to be purchased as a gift for brides. Inside are nested boxes designed to hold the memorabilia and flotsam of wedding planning, baby showers and so on. My colleague Alison Bert interviewed MariaClaudia, who said she is donating $10 of the $95 cost of each box to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at White Plains Hospital Center. You can read the full story here. Here is a picture staff photographer Matthew Brown took of MariaClaudia with the First Comes Love Box:

This Friday, it will be two years since I was admitted to White Plains Hospital Center with early symptoms of pre-eclampsia. Twelve days later, I gave birth to my daughter by emergency C-section. I was 27 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Pumpkin weighed just 1 pound, 13.4 ounces.

This year, on May 2, I hope to visit the NICU with bring Pumpkin so the nurses and doctors who saved her life can see for themselves the 21-pound wonder she’s become. Last year, on the day before her birthday, I stopped by the NICU when I was on the maternity floor to return the breast pump I used for a year. I was flooded with memories of the nine weeks I spent glued to her incubator and cradle and so happy to see those faces again which had become so familiar.

I think it’s wonderful that MariaClaudia has found a way to help the NICU. The way our family has chosen to celebrate Pumpkin’s triumph over prematurity is to participate each year in the March of Dimes WalkAmerica event, which is coming up on April 29. I’ll be writing more about that soon.

I hope you enjoy reading Alison’s story about MariaClaudia, and I’d love to hear your own stories of the ways you thank and honor the people who helped your child into this world.

A few weeks ago, while we were visiting my husband’s sister and family in Albany, we got to talking about a movie that I made to celebrate Pumpkin’s first year and a half of life. I gave DVDs to the family and friends who shared her baptism with us last spring. After watching it, my 9-year-old nephew said to his mom, “Wow, they’re really into her, aren’t they?” We all laughed. (And I took a mental note not to send as many pictures in e-mail.) My sister-in-law explained to her son that Pumpkin was very tiny when she was born and had to stay in the hospital for nine weeks, and that’s why we are so “into her.”

I was reminded of this exchange today when I read a fine story by colleague Melissa Klein on the neonatal intensive care unit at Westchester Medical Center’s Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. The headline, “Keeping the tiniest babies alive,” says it all. Melissa invites her readers into the NICU with her as she meets the parents, their babies and the doctors caring for the smallest and most fragile of patients.

Those days I spent in the NICU at White Plains Hospital are never far from my mind, and I know from experience how caring and giving the doctors and nurses can be. Pumpkin was born 13 weeks too early, and weighed less than 2 pounds, making her one of the “micropreemies” Melissa writes about.

I’ve written a little bit on the blog about Pumpkin’s early start, like this post on Prematurity Awareness Day, but haven’t told her whole story. In fact, I’ve never written any of it down anywhere. Melissa’s story has inspired me, though, and perhaps with your permission, I’ll share some of my experience as someone who became a mom three months sooner than I expected.

In the meantime, I encourage you to watch this video by Seth Harrison that takes you into NICU at Westchester Medical Center.

How many ways can you spell Mackenzie? At least 45. That’s the news from Babycenter, which has come out with its ranking of the most popular baby names for 2006. The most spelling variations on the boys’ side comes from the name Caden, which can be spelled 32 ways. New to the top 100 this year are Aubrey, Juliana, Maggie and Nevaeh — which is “heaven” spelled backwards.

Other trends noted by the editors at Babycenter include the replacement of the letter “i” with the letter “y,” as in Madyson and Mychael. Parents are also throwing in apostrophes to create unique names like Ky’Lee and Jay’Den. What’s interesting to see is the competing impulse among parents to make names special while still following the pack. Babycenter notes that about 40 percent of the top 100 boys’ names have a suffix with the “enâ€? sound, like Logan, Landon and Devin. The same percentage of girls’ names have the “ahâ€? sound, as in Alyssa, Amanda and Amelia.

And, despite a celebrity baby sharing a name with my Pumpkin (and no, it’s not Shiloh Jolie-Pitt), I was grateful to see my daughter’s name is not among the top 100. But once again, Emma tops the girls’ list. Sigh. I feel a particular ruefulness when I see that Emma is so popular because that was our first pick name. Back when my husband I first got together more than a decade ago, we talked about favorite names for babies. Emma was a clear winner. I loved it because it’s simple, yet beautiful, and one of my favorite heroines is named Emma. Ironically, my favorite boy’s name at the time, Ethan, is also a huge favorite these days and ranked No. 3 in 2006. But when we learned Pumpkin would be a girl, we never considered Emma seriously because, in our view, it has become too popular.

I imagine there are both advantages and disadvantages to having a very popular name. My husband, Michael, has always been “one of the Michaels” at school and often at work. My name, while among the favorites at the time I was born (notice I am tricky and am not revealing the year), was never so popular that I had another Julie in a class. In fact, I didn’t meet my first Julie until college. One of the other names my mother was considering, Michelle, was much more common among my friends.

I love many of the most popular girls’ names today, including Emily, Isabella, Sophia, Olivia and Madeline. (I, like many Generation X moms, seem to lean toward traditional favorites.) The popular boys’ names are great, too, including Jack, Noah and Owen. But would I pick one? Probably not.

What about the rest of you moms and dads? Did you give your children popular names? Why? And if not, why not?

Here, by the way, are the top 10 for 2006. (You can read the full ranking of the top 100 here.)

Girl names

1. Emma


2. Madison


3. Ava


4. Emily


5. Isabella


6. Kaitlyn


7. Sophia


8. Olivia


9. Abigail


10. Hailey

1. Aiden


2. Jacob


3. Ethan


4. Ryan


5. Matthew


6. Jack


7. Noah


8. Nicholas


9. Joshua


10. Logan

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day. If I read that sentence when I was pregnant, I’d probably pass up this post. I skipped those sections of the pregnancy books because, of course, that wouldn’t happen to me. But then, almost 13 weeks before my due date, just before they rolled me into the operating room for an emergency C-section, I heard these words from the neonatologist: “Ninety percent of babies born in this week of development survive and 85 percent have no major health problems.” He meant to be comforting.

I knew almost nothing about prematurity when I was admitted to the hospital two weeks before Pumpkin was born. I wasn’t alone. It turns out most people don’t know much about prematurity. The March of Dimes, which has its national headquarters in White Plains, has named November as Prematurity Awareness Month. One of the goals is to make 6 out of 10 women of childbearing age and half the general public aware of the problem of prematurity by the year 2010.

More than 508,000 U.S. babies are born preterm each year, which is defined as less than 37 weeks gestation. A normal pregnancy is 40 weeks long. About 12.5 percent of all babies are born prematurely, and it’s the leading cause of newborn death.

Because of my ignorance of prematurity, I was probably less afraid than I should have been before my daughter was born. I was also probably more terrified than necessary in the days and weeks afterward. We have been extremely fortunate. If the medical team who cared for us weren’t experts in treating extremely premature babies and their moms, she might not be alive today, and my life would be completely different.

Today was Pumpkin’s 18-month checkup. She weighed in at 19 pounds, 10 ounces. When she was born, she weighed just 1 pound, 13 ounces. In an average week in New York, 563 babies are born preterm and 97 are very preterm, like Pumpkin was.

In honor of Prematurity Awareness Day, a number of landmarks will be lit in pink and blue, including the Empire State Building, the Mid-Hudson Bridge, the Con Edison building in New York and Niagara Falls. (Coincidentally my hometown.) Take a look at Flickr’s March of Dimes: Prematurity Awareness Day 2006 page, which has sweet photos of preemies.

Here’s a picture of my little one when she was one month old:

The final tally of the first-ever Parents’ Place poll shows that most of you think the ideal age to have a first child is 25 to 30, with an overwhelming 59 of 95 votes (62 percent) cast in favor of those years.

I’d love to hear why exactly you picked this as the best time of life to have a baby. I can see that it has a lot of advantages, with fertility still high but some of the bumpiness of earlier years in term of education and finances behind you. The runner-up was ages 31 to 35, with 24 votes, or 25 percent. That age also has similarities with the late 20s.

The third most-popular time to have a baby was 24 and younger, with 8 votes, or 8 percent, cast in that category.

Waiting to have a baby is definitely not perceived as ideal, even though more and more moms are doing just that. Just 3 people, or 3 percent, thought age 36 to 40 is the ideal time to have a baby. And just 1 person voted for age 41 plus.

As a mom in the 36-40 category, I felt a definite twinge when I saw the votes keep coming for those younger years. It’s amazing how time can creep up on you — and you never seem to group yourself with “older” folks. (That’s always reserved for someone else, much, much older.)

I was inspired to put up the poll after I read this article on the older-younger mom divide in the September issue of Babytalk magazine. Here’s what I wrote at the time about the article. As I said then, I might sometimes wish I were younger because then I could have several more kids (and, let’s face it, more energy). I also find myself urging friends not to wait too long to have a baby if they want one. But another part of me wishes there were more votes for older moms. Go old moms!

A big thank you to all the parents who voted in our poll. Please take a minute to tell us why you voted the way you did — and what you’ve learned as a younger or older parent.

I’m starting a week’s vacation today, and when I come back to work on the 23rd, I plan to put up a new poll. So, this is your last chance to tell us which age you think is ideal for starting a family.

Instead of blogging about parenting, I’m looking forward to a week of actually parenting! We’ll be heading to the zoo, talking nice long walks to enjoy the foliage and eating apple pie. Yum!

Two premature babies just days old died of massive internal bleeding over the weekend after they received an adult dose of a blood thinning drug.

My heart stopped when I read the news, and I just had to sit down and cry for a minute for the tiny babies and their families.

The Indianapolis Star is reporting today that four other infants are recovering from the mistake.

The Star reports that a series of errors began when a staff member, likely from the hospital pharmacy, put a vial with the wrong dose in a drug cabinet in the neonatal unit. When a nurse removed the drug, he or she didn’t double-check the dose before filling the syringes.

Pumpkin spent nine weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at White Plains Hospital Center after she was born prematurely. During that time, I had to put my absolute faith in the medical team of doctors and nurses.

The decisions about her care were so beyond my ability to influence that I wasn’t even consulted before the doctors began new treatments.

What made it possible to leave my baby in the hospital while I went home to sleep was a belief that she was safe in the hands of competent and compassionate professionals.

In a few weeks, we’ll be attending the hospital’s annual NICU reunion, and I’ll be thanking the doctors and nurses for giving me the best gift of my life. My sympathy goes out to all the moms and dads with babies in hospitals today as the story of these deaths makes the news. I know that it has made it much harder for them to go home and get much-needed rest.

If you haven’t already, please take a moment to give your opinion on the best age to have your first child.

Are you an older mom or a younger mom? And which is better?

In a great article in the September issue of Babytalk magazine, senior editor Patty Onderko explores the divide between moms who grew up watching “Happy Days” (air date 1974-1984) and “Beverly Hills, 90210” (1990-2000).

When Babytalk surveyed 15,000 readers, the magazine found that 70 percent of older moms feel some younger moms are too immature to care for a baby. And 44 percent of younger moms think older moms are not physically able to keep up with their children. And moms are making these feelings known, though younger moms seem to show a bit more tact:

“Thirty-six percent of younger moms (and a whopping 54 percent of moms 24 years old or younger) say that an older mom has tried to make them feel like they’re too immature or inexperienced to care for a baby. On the flip side, just 12 percent of the older moms report that a younger mom made them feel like they’re too old and not energetic enough to care for a child,” Onderko writes.

A lot of these feelings seem to stem from a sense of inadequacy. The survey showed that more than half of the older moms wish they’d had a baby when they were younger, and 22 percent of the younger moms wish they had waited.

As someone who definitely qualifies as a “Happy Days” mom, I can relate. I had no idea I would love being a parent so much. If I had known I might have started a family earlier and had a lot more kids.

But I don’t have a single regret about waiting. If I had had children years earlier, they would have been Pumpkin’s siblings, not the child I kissed goodnight to a little while ago. And I’ve grown pretty fond of this exact little person.

That said, no one could be happy with being classified as a “geriatric” mother, a label that doctors attach to anyone who gets pregnant at 35 and over.

What’s worse, I found this scary page on the Yale Medical Group site that spells out the risks for pregnancy over 30, including the risk of Down syndrome rising from 1 in 1,300 when you’re less than 24 years old to 1 in 350 when you’re 35.

As an older mom, I’m getting more company. Research I found at the National Center for Health Statistics showed that birth to women ages 35 to 39 rose 4 percent from 2003 to 2004. The same report showed that childbearing by women ages 20 to 24 decreased 1 percent to 101.8 births per 1,000 women in 2004. It was the lowest rate ever reported.

So, 10 years from now, will more moms be able to identify with mothers like Pound Ridge resident and actress Susan Sarandon (46 when she had her last baby) than singer Britney Spears (age 23 when she had her last baby)?

What do you think is the perfect age to have a first child? Have your say in our poll.