Tiny Miracle

Submitted by Christian Stengal, Alex’s momma!

My son Alex was born Friday, August 24, 2007 at St Edward Mercy Medical Center. He was born 15 weeks early weighing 1 pound 9 ounces. Being born this early, Alex required quick medical attention from the Labor and Delivery team and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staff. When he was born at 8:09 p.m., all his dad and I wanted to hear was him cry. Seconds later we heard a little whimper. At that moment I felt that everything was going to be okay. Through all of this I was being attended to on the C-Section table. When the NICU team rolled Alex by me in an isolette, they stopped for a brief moment so that I could see him. He moved his arm toward me; he knew that I was his mama. Some time later I was rolled into the NICU with my husband by my side to see our son get baptized by a Priest. About that time the Angel One flight team from Arkansas Children's Hospital arrived to take Alex to Little Rock. After midnight, the Angel One flight team came by my room with Alex in an isolette on a stretcher. That would be the last time that I would see him for a couple of days.

On Monday, I was discharged from St Edward Mercy to go be with my son. Alex spent the first 8 weeks of his life at ACH, but on October 22, 2007 he was transported back home, back to the St. Edward Mercy NICU. There he spent 7 more weeks for a total of 108 days in the hospital. During his time at St. Edward Mercy, Alex and I became very close to the staff. It was very rewarding to meet those who took care of our tiny miracle the night he came into this world. We are forever blessed to have met some of the most unselfish and caring people in our community.

Today as I type this story Alex is asleep in his swing; he weighs 8 pounds 2 1/2 ounces. When he came home on December 10, 2007, he required an apnea monitor, oxygen for when he would eat, and breathing treatments twice a day. However, a month, later we happily returned the monitor and the oxygen. Now he doesn’t even need breathing treatments. He does have reflux so he takes medication for that, but other than that, he is just like his full-term counterparts.

We gave him life but Dr. Coloso and his staff gave him a chance.