The Late Mic Podcast - Parenting, Stories and Sarcasm · Dan Hancock (UK) with his wife, Sarah (USA) - Married couple with kids, challenges and sarcasm

Our Premature Pregnancy – Emmy’s Story (Part 1)

·1 hr 15 min·4 clips

At 24 weeks, they were asked whether to terminate the pregnancy or give Emmy a chance.

Dan and Sarah retell Emmy's story. She came along 14 weeks early, after a pregnancy that meant a lot of doctor and hospital visits and never felt easy. They start with the surprise. The pregnancy tests from Henry and Emmy come up, they laugh at how strange that sounds out loud, and they remember Emmy's arrival as a complete shock that turned into a happy one. The tone shifts fast after that. They move into the hard medical side of the pregnancy, including the fear around extreme prematurity, severe brain damage, palliative care, and choices no parent wants to face before a birth even happens. They do not gloss over any of it. They talk about deciding to keep going, give Emmy every possible chance, and take things one day at a time instead of pretending they had certainty. The strain showed up everywhere. They say the pregnancy stress and the fear about what might happen were hard on their relationship, especially when one conversation could jump from survival to quality of life in a few minutes. Their approach was practical. They wanted the worst case, the best case, and everything in between, because that felt more honest than acting like hope and reality were separate things. The episode also moves into the aftermath. They talk about the 89 days they spent in hospital and how one of them kept writing in a diary even on the quiet days, including simple notes about loving Emmy when there was nothing dramatic to report. That diary becomes a thread they want to pull on later. It might help them remember the small details that got buried under stress, especially the days when they thought something like a brain clot might be happening. The story stays grounded because they correct each other, circle back, and laugh at the wrong moment without losing the weight of what they are saying. That is part of the appeal. The conversation feels like two people telling the truth as they remember it, not polishing it for effect. By the end, the happy spoiler is out there early: Emmy is fine. What remains is the long, bruising stretch before that relief, plus the way they kept showing up for each other and for her anyway. It is a story about fear, waiting, and the ordinary records a family makes to get through both.

As heard by us

A blunt, loving account of Emmy's early birth, the hard choices around it, and the long hospital stay that followed.

Dan and Sarah's episode on Emmy is a blunt, intimate account of a pregnancy that turned urgent fast. Emmy was their second child, born 2.5 years ago at 26 weeks, after a hard stretch of repeated doctor and hospital visits.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want a premature-birth survival story told by the parents who lived it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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