
One Pound, Twelve Ounces
A Preemie Mother's Story of Loss, Hope, and Triumph
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Melissa Harris
-
By:
-
Melissa Harris
About this listen
Melissa Harris’s dream of being a mother again shatters when a fertility doctor tells her she may never have another child due to a physical anomaly in her uterus. Determined to persevere, she undergoes nine surgeries and a year of fertility treatments until she finally gets a positive pregnancy test—only to miscarry both twins within the first fifteen weeks.
When what she’s decided will be her last attempt results in her finally becoming pregnant, she’s told that this baby, Sam, is also at risk. While lying in a hospital bed for six days, trying to get to the golden standard twenty-four-week gestation mark, Melissa makes a decision—she will give this baby every chance to live, no matter what it takes.
One Pound, Twelve Ounces is the journey of one mother’s determination to give her micro-preemie a fighting chance, and the story of that baby’s remarkable battle to survive.
©2021 SheWritesPress (P)2021 Melissa HarrisListeners also enjoyed...
-
Raising a Rare Girl
- A Memoir
- By: Heather Lanier
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like many women of her generation, Heather Lanier did everything by the book when she was expecting her first child. But her daughter, Fiona, challenged all of Lanier's preconceptions. Born with an ultra-rare syndrome known as Wolf-Hirschhorn, Fiona received a daunting prognosis: She would experience significant developmental delays and might not reach her second birthday. Award-winning writer Heather Lanier's memoir about raising a child with a rare syndrome, defying the tyranny of normal, and embracing parenthood as a spiritual practice that breaks us open in the best of ways.
-
-
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
- By Julee on 01-23-21
By: Heather Lanier
-
Crash
- How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver
- By: Rachel Michelberg
- Narrated by: Rachel Michelberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver tackles a pervasive dilemma in our culture: the moral conflicts individuals face when caregiving for a disabled or cognitively impaired family member.
-
-
Not my normal murder mystery
- By JettaMae on 07-17-23
-
Baby Doe
- By: H. William Taeusch
- Narrated by: Margie Valine
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1984, and after an unexpected pregnancy, assistant professor Sophia Shulder learns that her newborn baby has Down syndrome and life-threatening anomalies that require immediate risky surgeries. Under pressure to give consent, Sophia is not sure whether that is best for her baby, or for herself. The hospital, threatened by the Reagan administration's new "Baby Doe" laws, launches legal proceedings to force surgery. Is a severely disabled baby's death ever preferable to life? Who decides?
-
-
Somewhat depressing story plot.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-18-24
-
A Heart That Works
- By: Rob Delaney
- Narrated by: Rob Delaney
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son, Henry, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family had moved from Los Angeles to London with their two young boys when Rob’s wife was pregnant with Henry, their third. The move was an adventure that would bind them even more tightly together as they navigated the novelty of London, the culture clashes, and the funhouse experience of Rob’s fame—thanks to his role as co-creator and co-star of the hit series Catastrophe. Henry’s illness was a cataclysm that changed everything about their lives.
-
-
Outstanding
- By michelle pollock on 12-08-22
By: Rob Delaney
-
True Love and Suffering
- A Caretaker’s Memoir of Trauma, Despair, and Other Blessings
- By: Pavel Ythjall
- Narrated by: Bernardo De Paula
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After only a year of marriage, Pavel Ythjall found himself staring into the eyes of a neurosurgeon who told him point-blank: “Your wife will be paralyzed, neck down, for life.” At the time, Pavel had a broken neck, too. His vertebrae were supported by a halo screwed directly into his skull. A tragic accident on the way to a Christmas party had changed their lives forever.
-
-
If you're in a rut about your life read this book.
- By Quetza on 12-06-22
By: Pavel Ythjall
-
All of This
- A Memoir of Death and Desire
- By: Rebecca Woolf
- Narrated by: Rebecca Woolf
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died. In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.
-
-
excellentt!
- By S. DAWN HANSCOM on 11-26-22
By: Rebecca Woolf
-
Raising a Rare Girl
- A Memoir
- By: Heather Lanier
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like many women of her generation, Heather Lanier did everything by the book when she was expecting her first child. But her daughter, Fiona, challenged all of Lanier's preconceptions. Born with an ultra-rare syndrome known as Wolf-Hirschhorn, Fiona received a daunting prognosis: She would experience significant developmental delays and might not reach her second birthday. Award-winning writer Heather Lanier's memoir about raising a child with a rare syndrome, defying the tyranny of normal, and embracing parenthood as a spiritual practice that breaks us open in the best of ways.
-
-
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
- By Julee on 01-23-21
By: Heather Lanier
-
Crash
- How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver
- By: Rachel Michelberg
- Narrated by: Rachel Michelberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver tackles a pervasive dilemma in our culture: the moral conflicts individuals face when caregiving for a disabled or cognitively impaired family member.
-
-
Not my normal murder mystery
- By JettaMae on 07-17-23
-
Baby Doe
- By: H. William Taeusch
- Narrated by: Margie Valine
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1984, and after an unexpected pregnancy, assistant professor Sophia Shulder learns that her newborn baby has Down syndrome and life-threatening anomalies that require immediate risky surgeries. Under pressure to give consent, Sophia is not sure whether that is best for her baby, or for herself. The hospital, threatened by the Reagan administration's new "Baby Doe" laws, launches legal proceedings to force surgery. Is a severely disabled baby's death ever preferable to life? Who decides?
-
-
Somewhat depressing story plot.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-18-24
-
A Heart That Works
- By: Rob Delaney
- Narrated by: Rob Delaney
- Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son, Henry, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family had moved from Los Angeles to London with their two young boys when Rob’s wife was pregnant with Henry, their third. The move was an adventure that would bind them even more tightly together as they navigated the novelty of London, the culture clashes, and the funhouse experience of Rob’s fame—thanks to his role as co-creator and co-star of the hit series Catastrophe. Henry’s illness was a cataclysm that changed everything about their lives.
-
-
Outstanding
- By michelle pollock on 12-08-22
By: Rob Delaney
-
True Love and Suffering
- A Caretaker’s Memoir of Trauma, Despair, and Other Blessings
- By: Pavel Ythjall
- Narrated by: Bernardo De Paula
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After only a year of marriage, Pavel Ythjall found himself staring into the eyes of a neurosurgeon who told him point-blank: “Your wife will be paralyzed, neck down, for life.” At the time, Pavel had a broken neck, too. His vertebrae were supported by a halo screwed directly into his skull. A tragic accident on the way to a Christmas party had changed their lives forever.
-
-
If you're in a rut about your life read this book.
- By Quetza on 12-06-22
By: Pavel Ythjall
-
All of This
- A Memoir of Death and Desire
- By: Rebecca Woolf
- Narrated by: Rebecca Woolf
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died. In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband’s death—and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband’s illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.
-
-
excellentt!
- By S. DAWN HANSCOM on 11-26-22
By: Rebecca Woolf
-
Bright Lights, Prairie Dust
- Reflections on Life, Loss, and Love from Little House's Ma
- By: Karen Grassle
- Narrated by: Karen Grassle
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful but alcohol wreaked havoc.
-
-
Wanting more prairie talk
- By nowiecva on 02-08-22
By: Karen Grassle
-
American Oz
- An Astonishing Year Inside Traveling Carnivals at State Fairs & Festivals: Hitchhiking from California to New York, Alaska to Mexico
- By: Michael Sean Comerford
- Narrated by: Michael Sean Comerford
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Oz is a rollicking, gritty, adventurous story of life in the secretive subculture of traveling carnivals. You'll never see your state fair or street festival the same way again. Comerford writes a bold, inspiring true story of a year working behind the scenes with the colorful characters and legends of carnivals. He shares stories of freaks, a carnival pimp, a tramp gold miner, and the last king of the sideshows.
-
-
Fun Listen
- By Tim Blackburn on 05-26-22
-
Safe, Wanted, and Loved
- A Family Memoir of Mental Illness, Heartbreak, and Hope
- By: Patrick Dylan
- Narrated by: Raúl E. Esparza
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Pat, we need to kill the dog.” When a sudden mental illness struck his wife, Patrick Dylan found himself living with an eerie stranger. Scared and unprepared, he began a desperate battle to protect her from a mysterious disease, shelter their children from her bizarre behavior, and recover the woman he loved. Within weeks, she had been admitted to the emergency room, the hospital, and the local crisis facility, but none of the experts could provide an answer. As her illness eluded diagnosis, the family’s struggle was only beginning.
-
-
Do not listen and drive
- By Anonymous User on 11-02-22
By: Patrick Dylan
-
Back to the Prairie
- A Home Remade, a Life Rediscovered
- By: Melissa Gilbert, Timothy Busfield
- Narrated by: Melissa Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Known for her childhood role as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the classic NBC show Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert has spent nearly her entire life in Hollywood. From Dancing with the Stars to a turn in politics, she is always on the lookout for her next project. She just had no idea that her latest one would be completely life changing. When her husband introduces her to the wilds of rural Michigan, Melissa begins to fall back in love with nature. And when work takes them to New York, they find a rustic cottage in the Catskill Mountains to call home.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 05-18-22
By: Melissa Gilbert, and others
-
The Child I Never Had
- By: Kate Hewitt
- Narrated by: Kate Handford
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s a warm, early summer’s evening, when Mia’s doorbell rings unexpectedly. She opens the door to see the silhouette of a teenage girl, standing in the shadow beyond the porch light - and in an instant, she realizes who it is. Daisy, the daughter she gave up as a baby. She says she has a terrible secret. And she believes the only person who can help her is Mia. Her birth mother. Mia, however, has secrets of her own. Ones that she is afraid to let Daisy or anyone else know.
-
-
Truly Powerful
- By KatieRose on 01-04-24
By: Kate Hewitt
-
Blood Orange Night
- My Journey to the Edge of Madness
- By: Melissa Bond
- Narrated by: Melissa Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines—a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan—and increases her dosage regularly.
-
-
This book is not a memoir of benzos
- By Mark Lawson on 04-27-24
By: Melissa Bond
-
The Perfect Child
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Christine Williams, Erin Bennett, Dan John Miller
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christopher and Hannah are a happily married surgeon and nurse with picture-perfect lives. All that’s missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.
-
-
You can see it coming... but how bad is it?
- By shelley on 03-02-19
By: Lucinda Berry
-
Happiness: A Memoir
- The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After
- By: Heather Harpham
- Narrated by: Heather Harpham
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant - Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends.
-
-
Long & Tedious. If Only She'd Had a Good Editor.
- By Carolyn on 07-05-18
By: Heather Harpham
-
Inconceivable
- A Medical Mistake, the Baby We Couldn't Keep, and Our Choice to Deliver the Ultimate Gift
- By: Carolyn Savage, Sean Savage
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A medical mistake during an IVF procedure.An unthinkable situation....you're pregnant with the wrong baby. You can terminate, but you can't keep him. What choice would you make?
-
-
"Misconception" and "Inconceivable"
- By Simone on 12-17-12
By: Carolyn Savage, and others
-
She Danced with Lightning
- My Daughter's Struggle with Epilepsy and Her Boundless Will to Live
- By: Marc Palmieri
- Narrated by: Marc Palmieri
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eleven-year-old Anna has lived all her life with severe epilepsy. Despite the ravage of thousands of violent seizures and heavy medications, she has thrived at school, athletics, and her greatest passion—dance. As she approaches her twelfth birthday, Anna's condition takes a dire turn. Her health declines quickly and a new diagnosis is revealed, leaving the family only one excruciating choice.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Sheila Valaer on 01-08-24
By: Marc Palmieri
-
Heart Full of Lies
- A True Story of Desire and Death
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An idyllic Hawaiian wedding held the promise of a wonderful future for handsome, athletic Chris Northon, an airline pilot, a confirmed bachelor-turned-devoted family man; and Liysa, an acclaimed surf photographer, loving mother, and aspiring Hollywood screenwriter. But few, including Chris, had seen Liysa's other side - her controlling behavior and dark moods, her insatiable hunger for money and property. And no one anticipated the fatal outcome of a family camping trip in an Oregon forest.
-
-
Liysa Northon- It’s not a lie if you believe it
- By M. Thompson on 01-06-21
By: Ann Rule
-
The Emergency
- A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
- By: Thomas Fisher
- Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Thomas Fisher
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an emergency room doctor working on the rapid evaluation unit, Dr. Thomas Fisher has about three minutes to spend with the patients who come into the South Side of Chicago ward where he works before directing them to the next stage of their care. Bleeding: three minutes. Untreated wound that becomes life-threatening: three minutes. Kidney failure: three minutes. He examines his patients inside and out, touches their bodies, comforts and consoles them, and holds their hands on what is often the worst day of their lives.
-
-
Meh
- By chel_c42 on 03-29-22
By: Thomas Fisher
What listeners say about One Pound, Twelve Ounces
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julie Schloss
- 05-18-23
A preemie love letter
“One Pound, Twelve Ounces” is a love story written by a mother to her son. That mother is my friend, Melissa. Melissa and I met in high school and bonded over basketball. We lost touch a bit after high school when she went off to college and life became the craziness that life is. We were able to reconnect and now keep in touch on a more regular basis. While we had drifted apart, Melissa got married and became a mother. This is a part of her story I wasn’t there for. So when Melissa published this book in 2021, I immediately knew I was going to read it, but I knew it would be hard. She then announced she was releasing an audiobook version, and I knew that was the version I wanted for this experience. I finally ripped the Band-Aid off and started listening last week and finished today. If I didn’t know she was amazing, and strong, and resilient, before this, I certainly know now. I cried, I laughed, I shook my head, I swore out loud, and then I cried again. Melissa‘s kids, Irene and Sam, don’t know how lucky they are to have her as their mom. Now about the book… to say it was insightful, is an understatement. Melissa shares her story in a way that simplifies the medical terminologies so that someone who hasn’t gone down that path can understand the fear, anxiety, and utter exhaustion that comes with preemies and micro preemie’s. This book is for anybody who loves somebody. Because inevitably, somebody you know, or maybe even you, will have this battle to fight. I know that reading this book makes me a better friend and a better human. Thank you for your courage to write your story and share it with the world, Mel. Love you ❤️
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!