HI S.,
Our son was born at 33 1/2 weeks. I went into labor without knowing ( I know...how do you NOT know??) and they tried to stop the labor with magnesium sulfate, and give me a steroid to help dry out his lungs. When the ms that didn't work they decided to deliver him knowing that his lungs weren't ready.
Initially he was able to breathe on his own and had a good strong birth weight of 6.6 lbs. Soon after being born though he developed pneumothroax and was not doing well breathing on his own. He was then sent to another hospital and placed in the NICU. He was intubated for a few days and also had to be in the blue light for jaundice. In total he was in for 15 days.
He did also have trouble keeping food down via gavage feeding, but didn't have any trouble nursing. I wasn't allowed to nurse him until he moved "up" to a lesser level of care and was more stable. But when I was allowed to nurse, he did really well. After he came home we did have some trouble with reflux and he was on meds for it for a short period of time. That is just something they end up growing out of.
We had him evaluated through early intervention and found that we needed to do some physical therapy with him because he wasn't rolling over properly. Commonly, preemie babies have strong posterior sides but not anterior (front) muscles. So instead of pushing up and rolling over he would throw his head up and use his back muscles and the weight of his head to roll over. He also ran with his shoulders pinned back and had poor balance as a toddler. He wasn't however, delayed. He walked at 12 months, was considered a "late" talker, but this was because of ear infections inhibiting his hearing.
Now at 5 years old, he is a brilliantly, beautiful, funny, intelligent little boy. He was considered caught up at 3 years old. You'd never know now that he had a rocky beginning!
Good luck :)