Child's Birth Year
2020

State/Province/Territory
Texas

NICU Hospital for my journey
Ascension Seton Medical Hospital Austin

My NICU Graduate's Journey
Due to sudden Help syndrome, Cecilia was born 11 weeks early and was carefully cared for by the NICU Angels at Ascension Seton Medical Hospital for 95 days. She was on oxygen, light therapy and a feeding tube. She worked hard to get off of oxygen. Due to severe GERD, she didn’t take to bottles and came home with a nasal feeding tube. After 5 months at home with us, she was deemed failure to thrive and was switched to a stomach g-tube as it was predicted by doctors that she would most likely not take to food until she was about 4 years old. Until the day of her first birthday, her GERD caused her to vomit up to 15 times per day.

Miraculously, the day of her 1st birthday was the first day she ever went without vomiting! That was the start to her incredible progress. Her GERD started resolving and she slowly began eating baby food! Within a few months, she was exploring all kinds of foods! At 20 months old, she defied the odds and was cleared to have her G-Tube removed. For the first time since birth , I finally felt like I could breathe, and I’ve been breathing ever since. Currently at 3 years old, she’s a food monster who loves princesses, looking for bugs and playing dress up.

We will be forever grateful to the NICU staff for getting our baby strong and the support they gave us to get through it all.

What makes you proud of you NICU graduate?
Cecilia is one of the most resilient people I know and I deeply admire her for that. She’s accomplished a lot for only living 3 years. She taught me to leave my expectations at the door and just enjoy life’s ride. She was late to get off of oxygen, leave the NICU, eat, lift her head up, stand, walk and talk but she’s done it all on her own time and is thriving. So were my original expectations of her doing all of these things by a certain time really that significant? Nope, and I can’t wait to see what our girl does next.

Weight at Birth (lbs. or Grams)
2 lbs 8 oz

Weeks Gestation
29 Weeks

Time spent in the NICU (Specify Day, Month, or Year)
95 Days