About Us | Tommy's Preemie Web | Living Room

About Us
(AKA "The Living Room")

Tommy's Preemie Web chronicles our son Thomas' 1994 premature birth, along with updates as to how and what Thomas has been doing over the years since. The story starts on the Thomas Today page which provides a current update, and then links into a journal of our time in the NICU (which today would be handled as a blog).

This site was originally known as "Tommy's CyberNursery" in 1995, back when everything was cyber-something. It was the first preemie site listed in the Yahoo! directory (popular in the pre-search engine days) and gained quite a bit of notoriety and attention in its early years.

Over time we evolved to become "Tommy's CyberNursery Preemie Web" to better establish the site as a preemie resource. We eventually dropped CyberNursery altogether, as over time he was far to old to have anything called a "nursery."

This page has been featured as "the Living Room" over the years, which traces back to the original 1995 layout concept which identified each page as a room. In those days it housed our guestbook and contact form, which have since been replaced by our Facebook fan page.

Thanks for visiting!

Tommy's Preemie Web History

Thomas is born

July 1994

Thomas Clark King was born 15 weeks early on July 26 1994. Our "25 Weeker" weighed only 1 lb 10 oz and was 13 inches long.
Tommy's CyberNursery

May 1995

The first version of "The CyberNursery" was coded by hand and placed on the Web with a house theme including a "Hallway" with pictures, a "Living Room" with a guest book, A "Library" with links to preemie resources, and the "CyberNursery" with Thomas' status and his story. Elements of this theme persist throughout until this day (note that the HTML file for this page is "livingrm.htm" following that history)
Recognition

1995

The CyberNursery really took off when it became the first preemie site listed on "Yahoo!" — which was the most popular Web directory of the time. Further recognition came from "Lycos," another popular site of the time which listed our site as one of the "Top 5%" websites on the Internet.
Preemie Support

The notoriety of The CyberNursery came with a responsibility to the preemie parent community. Thomas' father became involved with chat, email and web based support groups and resource sites — extending the reach from our notoriety to other properties that would ultimately eclipse The CyberNursery as the top reasources for preemie parents on the Web. Some of these, like Preemie-L and Prematurity.org still offer support to this day.
Thomas' Story in Print

2000

Thomas' story was included in the book "Living Miracles: Stories of Hope from Parents of Premature Babies" by Kimberly Powell and Kim Wilson. The book is described as "Twenty-two engrossing stories of babies born prematurely, written by those who felt the agony and the elation the most — their parents." While now out of print, used copies can still be found on the Internet.
Kindergarten

August 2000

A page was added to Thomas' story which had been previously considered completed with "Epilogue" in 1997. The key message to preemie parents was "We have been where you are now, yet we have moved on."
The CyberNursery becomes Tommy's Preemie Web

Thomas' school years were a fun time full of school, scouting, sports, church, and family activities. The site was updated periodically to include new pictures — and for many years had a daily "Message from Thomas" on the homepage.
The site was updated at various times over these years, however, a lot of legacy Web features and code remained. During that time we added "Preemie Web" for search relavance — and later, dropped the "CyberNursery" from the name as it was no longer a fit for a growing young man.
Life Changes and New Interests

Thomas started Middle School in Michigan in 2006 and picked up an interest in the Trumpet. He finished Middle School in 2009 in North Carolina, after a family move in 2008.

He started High School in 2009 where he was an enthusiastic member of the band in addition to continuing with scouts and excelling in school.
Eagle Scout

2012

Thomas was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout by the Boy Scouts of America in 2012. His Eagle project was a kennel for the SPCIA for which we had a cement slab poured, built two custom kennels, and provided a supply of food and shelter for animals that would use these kennels as temporary homes.
High School Graduate

Class of 2013

Thomas' had an outstanding high school career. He was a member of the National Honor Society and a leader in an award winning marching band.

After high school, Thomas entered college where he continues to be successful.
Tommy's Preemie Web gets a makeover

2017

For the first time ever, Tommy's Preemie Web was completely rebuilt in 2017. This update removed legacy code, and made the site mobile friendly — important as all indications are that most of the new traffic comes from mobile devices. References to our history remain — as does the preemie story and pictures that so many have gained comfort from over the years. Gone are old time features like a links pages and 3D picture cubes and such.
Thomas today

Thomas' current focus is his studies as a college student with plans to eventually go to graduate school. We are very excited to see what the future holds for our former preemie who has turned into so much more than we were sure could ever happen.