One-Pound Premature Baby Fights For His Life, Family Asks For Support
A one-pound premature baby is fighting for his life, and his family needs all the support it can get as the dreaded medical bills for the care of the child start coming in.
Tiny Wyatt James was born on June 12 at the Florida Hospital For Children at only 26 weeks of age. He barely weighs one-pound, two-ounces and is only 11 and three-quarters inches long. He is really, really small and has a lot of medical problems.
On a Go Fund Me page called Wyatt’s Battle established by the one-pound premature baby’s father, Walter, he gives a detailed account of everything that happened since his wife was admitted to the hospital. His daddy calls his son “our little miracle baby.”
According to Walter, his wife Melissa had a difficult pregnancy which was plagued with one problem after another, but the couple decided to go ahead and let things develop.
“Ever since the very first ultrasound, we have been told bad things from the doctor and that we needed to go for these tests or those tests. They found soft markers for Down’s (Echogenic Bowel, Short Longbones, Two-Vessel Cord), they told us he was way too small and that we were very high risk.”
Doctors feared a very dangerous condition, Preeclampsia, and admitted the one-pound premature baby’s mother to the hospital two weeks before the birth. At the time she had chest pains and her blood pressure was “through the roof.” When the scare passed she was sent home.
On June 11, Melissa was back at the hospital because of another preeclampsia scare, but the problem was with her kidneys and liver. The mom was transported to another children’s hospital in Orlando, where she was diagnosed with HELLP Syndrome, which can sometimes be difficult to diagnose and is a dangerous condition considered to be a type of preeclampsia, according to the Preeclampsia Foundation.
Doctors determined her placenta was separating, which was wreaking havoc on her red blood cells. On Friday, June 12, Melissa was woken up at 6 a.m. and told she would have to undergo an emergency C-section at 7:30 a.m. At 8:15 Walter met his one-pound premature baby boy for the first time.
“I watched the doctor cut his cord and rush him over to a group of doctors and nurses who began to work on him. I can’t get out of my head the first time I saw him. How tiny he was. He is so tiny, I could fit his entire leg into my wedding band.”
Baby Wyatt James is in an incubator set to 75 percent humidity and a scorching 97 degrees Fahrenheit, his father, who has not lost his sense of humor, explains.
“He is my little warrior. That is in fact what his name, Wyatt, means. So far he is breathing 21 percent oxygen (what we breath), breathing about 20 additional breaths than what they are pushing, he has beat jaundice, received a blood transfusion, and has all the nurses melting all over him, haha.”
The family of the one-pound premature baby applied to stay at the local Ronald McDonald house for $20 per night and are seeking help with their medical expenses. Melissa was discharged from the hospital, but will quit her full-time job to stay for the 30 days doctors think Wyatt will need for his care. Walter is commuting one hour to work.
[Image via Go Fund Me]
