i would consider it a legitimate fear. a friend of mine and his girlfriend went into labor around 23 weeks and she lived. they brought her home over the summer, she was born in february.. i believe. those occurences are far and few between. youve been doing great so far. HANG IN THERE! WE ARE ALMOST DONE!

Thanks Kim, it's such an odd time in your life isn't it...being so happy and yet fearful.
My little madam is being very active today which is reassuring :)

This has been bothering me a lot as well. Before I got pregnant I was told I had a short cervix, but I have been checked throughout and so far so good, but my biggest fear is leaving the hospital without my baby.

being a mom of a premie I can tell you that while it is hard to have your baby taken to the nicu for its own health (my baby was even taken to a different hospital) eventually when you do get to see the baby the love is still there. And whe beby does come home the bonding is just as strong. They do usually keep the baby close to the lengh of time they had to be gestationally finished growing... my son was 6 and a half weeks premie and he was in the hospital 6 weeks.

Hang in there no matter when the baby gets here and under what circumstances yorittle one will end up alright ;p

I think this is a normal worry.

A friend of mine said that the scariest time for her was 24-28 weeks when the baby is just about viable but is likely to die or have some sort of damage if born at that time.
I lost a pregnancy at 20 weeks and was glad at the time that there would be no hope of saving the 'baby'. I even remember saying to the doctor during the delivery that I didn't want any mad doctors trying to keep it alive if it wasn't born dead. I think this must be a horrible experience and that mothers should be allowed to request no resuscitation on a baby born terribly early. Saying that, plenty do survive and after lengthy stays in hospital can grow up to be fine. But the stress for the parents must be huge and the risks for the baby are high.

Oh - there are so many things to worry about while pregnant :(
There's no point in saying try not to. Whatever happens you will deal with it and love your baby.
You're just dreaming about it because it's your pet fear. My friends and I decided that each of us had something that we worried about more than anything else. Mine was Down's Syndrome (my risk was 1/260!) and the others weren't worried about that particularly but had their own things. We established that it's impossible to reassure each other and you just have to deal with it :(

Good luck with everything and remember, pregnancy isn't all fun, excitement, blooming and stuff - there's a huge dollop of anxiety and dread in there too - for everyone I think!