Among the treatment was a drug which had been developed to help strengthen the lungs of preemies.

The doctors told Mike that if Evan had been born in 1976 (the year Mike was born), the odds would have been against his surviving. Today, though, 95 percent of babies born with Evan’s condition survive.

Because Evan’s lungs weren’t strong, he was very frail. He developed some infections, including jaundice; had to be fed through a feeding tube; and was on oxygen to help him breathe.

Mike and Jennifer never got to hold their baby until he was a week old, and then it was with the assistance of two nurses who helped with keeping the various medical wires straight.

Before Evan could be released from the hospital, he had to pass a battery of tests, including being able to sit in a car seat for 10 minutes without setting off an alarm indicating he was having trouble breathing.

When they finally took Evan home, Mike and Jennifer looked at each other and said, “Now what?” But they learned quickly that although they had left the hospital, they weren’t without resources.

Some of the help came through the Early Intervention Program which made at-home visits to help Evan with developmental skills.

The couple moved to Meadville when Mike became assistant director of public affairs for Allegheny College, and they quickly learned that Crawford County has the same good health-care resources as Erie County does, he said.

Mike said Evan, now a kindergarten student at West End Elementary School, has worked very hard at speech and other therapy, and today it is hard to realize he once had developmental problems.

Jennifer had developed a Web site and they had a good response to that, Mike said. It received many words of encouragement from other families of premature babies.

Having a premature baby can be stressful, Mike said, and he and Jennifer went through some tough times.

One of the toughest decisions was whether to have another child because they had been told that once a woman has preeclampsia, it isn’t uncommon for it to develop in subsequent pregnancies

But they decided to try again and this time their baby, Grady, went full-term with none of the complications that Evan had. Grady will be 2 in June.

Grady and Evan will be walking with Mike and Jennifer in the March for Babies in Crawford County on April 27.

They’re looking forward to it because they know that because of the March of Dimes, “everything worked out for Evan; we had a happy ending,” Mike said.