HOWS THE BABY DOING - STRUGGLING WITH NARRATIVES OF PROGRESS IN A NEONATAL INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT

In this at once biographical and autobiographical piece (cf. Shapiro 1 988), I describe the processes of ''knowledge-making'' of one neonatal intensive care parent. In particular, I investigate the ways that nar ratives of linear progress informed my efforts to understand my son's condition and future prospects, that is, to engage in lay prognosticat ion. In examining and comparing the three metaphors most commonly used to describe my son's changing condition-roller coaster, graduation, a nd course-I explore how the discrepancy between narratives of linear p rogress and the complex and volatile condition of many premature and/o r critically ill babies is discursively managed in a neonatal intensiv e care unit.