National Geographic describes a giraffe as the world’s tallest mammal, one that is “fascinating in the way that it roams the open grasslands in small groups of about half a dozen”. However, to some the word giraffe has an entirely different meaning. Giraffe, an incubator that personifies that of the female uterus, kept my baby alive for nearly three months.

At the early gestation of 25 weeks, I was admitted to the hospital at 2 centimeters dilated and my amniotic sack bulging. Taking myself to the emergency room for some abnormal symptoms resulted in the scariest week of my life. I was transported to a hospital that had Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) capabilities so that, if my daughter was born, we would be at the safest, most advanced hospital in the area. I was quickly given shot after shot. A shot to stop contractions, a shot to protect the babies lungs, an IV was placed for magnesium to also stop contractions and a Foley catheter was placed with no numbing or anesthesia. It seemed like my world was crashing and there was absolutely nothing I could do but lay, practically upside down, and pray that my baby stayed inside. This was Monday. By Saturday my blood work came back with an extremely high white blood count. I was immediately given IV antibiotics but, to no avail, the next morning I was given the news that I was going to have to deliver the baby in order to save both of our lives. A doctor from the NICU came up to my room to explain what would happen with my baby and her chance of survival-a very low 35% chance that she would ever come home with us. Devastation filled my entire world as I knew it.

Delivery came and after several pushes, our daughter was wheeled off to the NICU. It was hours before I was able to see her and holding her tiny little hand that could barely wrap around my pinky made my heart sink. She was only 1 ½ pounds and smaller than a Barbie doll. Machines surrounded her, cords hung from every inch of her tiny, transparent body keeping her alive. I cried at the miracle in front of me. My first child laid there on life support and we had no idea what the future held. It was the scariest, but yet most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Until you have experienced this kind of miracle, you really never understand. We can describe intense, intricate details to our families and friends, people can come and visit, but the journey is never understood by an outsider the way it is for us as parents. I believe the hardest part of the whole experience are the days you don’t want to talk about it. The days you find out news that’s not so great and you have no desire to share. I spent many days this way, keeping many details of our daughter’s life to myself and my husband. Sometimes it was just the fact I didn’t want anyone else to worry. However, most of the time I just wanted to not have to explain something so gut-wrenching, be asked questions I had no answers to by people who had no idea what pain I was experiencing. People that, by no harmful intentions, would offer advice or share stories that they assumed were helpful to our situation. We heard a lot of “premature baby” stories of babies born at 36 weeks that irked me to my core. We heard a lot of people who knew a doctor or a nurse that said this or that in terms of what to expect with OUR baby.

On top of such a devastating experience, just dealing with other people was a battle in itself most days. There were days all I wanted was to sit by her incubator but I was bombarded with lactation specialists trying to “help” me figure out why I couldn’t produce enough milk, nurses coming over to recover her from a severe bradycardia or desaturation, and lab technicians constantly bruising her tiny feet to draw what little amount of blood she had after several transfusions. I was, no doubt, in a period of ultimate depression and wanted nothing more than to be isolated from everyone outside of my little girl and my husband. The majority of our days we updated people with encouraging words and spent more time in prayer knowing God was the only one who fully understood and had a plan for our daughter from the beginning.

After 104 days, our beautiful daughter came home with us. She remained on breathing treatments for another month, but has since been taken off the oxygen and flourished before our eyes. Though the road ahead is still long in terms of her development and health, her father and I are amazed at how far she has come and the fact that she is even alive today to smile and laugh at us. I couldn’t imagine a day without her.