Alex

Overview

Nearly half a million preemies are born in the U.S. every year. But like most people, Jeff Stimpson, the father who wrote Alex, never gave premature babies a thought beyond the cliché of medical miracles. Many of these children grow up with special needs, necessitating an increasing and ever-controversial burden on society. Medicine is creating not only a new population of individuals, but a special and growing population of parents and families. Alex was born in June of 1998. He weighed 21 ounces. He spent the first year of his life in the hospital. This is the story of his first years. It's a story of doctors, hospitals, conferences, hate, love, gratitude, envy, frustration, joy, and worry. It's the story of a preemie.

Stimpson saw his son get a spinal tap without anesthesia (it isn't given to micro-preemies) and three times witnessed Alex stop breathing-once on his lap. Stimpson and his wife were at the hospital every day, and there they encountered not only how far the science of saving preemies has advanced but how far it hasn't, and how far healthcare and other professionals need to go to understand what parents go through when their infant lives in a hospital. The Stimpsons got a crash course in life behind the billboard of medical miracle, and learned how care of preemies can greatly differ, and, perhaps most important, how patients' families must learn to be consumers when trying to find that care. What keeps a family going when a child spends a year in the hospital? In compelling prose, Stimpson traces the life of his child from birth to kindergarten: four wings in two hospitals; coming home with a roomful of medical gear and round-the-clock drugs and nursing; the gains and downturns of home therapy through Early Intervention; finding and prospering in a special-needs preschool; a diagnosis of autism; and the ongoing battle to give Alex a fair shot at childhood, and at life.

Reviews

"Journalist Stimpson debuts with a searing chronicle of life after the birth of his premature son. . . . Breath-catchingly evocative of life's elemental grace and messy dignity."––Kirkus Reviews

"A must read before you get pregnant, and for every friend and relative of a family who has a preemie."––Dr. Jonathan Y. Lukoff, Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics

"Jill and Jeff Stimpson model for us a family held together by love and commitment despite . . . terrible stresses."––Dr. Anita Catlin, Associate Professor of Nursing, Sonoma State University

"Jeff Stimpson's book . . . is wonderful. This is an honest, healing book that brought tears to my eyes . . . Alex will touch you with both sorrow and joy, and will bring you comfort and validation."––Michael T. Hynan, Ph.D., author, The Pain of Premature Parents

Author Biography