By Mallory Haag
Indiana Daily Student
Thomas French, professor of practice in journalism in the IU Media School, stood up in front of a crowd of friends, colleagues and students at the Barnes and Noble on Third Street Sunday afternoon.
“I want to thank you all for coming out today,” French said. “A lot of you held our hands through the living of these events and then held our hands again through the writing of it.”
The small crowd gathered for the launch of the book Thomas and his wife, Kelley French, also a professor of practice in journalism at IU, wrote together. They applauded the authors before stepping forward to have their books signed by the two and their daughter, Juniper.
“Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon” is a firsthand account of what Thomas and Kelley experienced when Juniper was born at 23 weeks and six days. A full-term baby is born at 40 weeks so Juniper’s survival depended on a team of skilled doctors and several months spent in a neonatal intensive care unit..
“When we were living through it, we knew at the beginning of that time period that if we made it out of the NICU with our daughter, that we had a pretty powerful story,” Thomas said. “We had this really close, detailed look at this part of our society that is usually very tough to get into.”