Saybie is tiny… actually, she was the world’s smallest baby. But this baby is a fighter and after five months of fighting for her life, she was finally sent home from the hospital.
Baby Saybie was born weighing just 8.6 ounces and was deemed the tiniest baby ever to survive, according to the Tiniest Baby Registry of the University of Iowa. That’s half a pound!
Saybie was born prematurely at just 23 weeks and 3 days instead of 40 weeks. She weighed as much as a juice box does when she was born.
Because of her condition, Baby Saybie had to spend five months in the NICU at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital in San Diego, California. She was finally allowed to go home when she was a healthy 5.6 pounds.
The child’s mom said that the day she was delivered was the “scariest day of my life.”
“I just felt very uncomfortable that day and I just thought maybe this is part of the pregnancy,” her mom, who wanted to remain anonymous, explained in a heartwarming video from the hospital. “They told me I had preeclampsia. My blood pressure was very, very high over 200 and we had to deliver her really quick.”
The poor mother was terrified that her baby wouldn’t survive.
“At 254 grams, there’s reservations on survival,” Sharp Mary Birch NICU RN Courtney Akel said in the video.
Once the baby was delivered, the medical staff didn’t think she would survive.
“They told my husband that he had about an hour with her, and that she was going to pass away,” Saybie’s mother said. “But that hour turned into two hours, which turned into a day, which turned into a week.”
And Saybie did survive despite weighing only half of what a typical 23-week-old baby would weigh.
The nurses in the NICU say that Saybie is nothing short of “miracle” and that her will to live is what kept her alive.
“We do everything we know how to do as well as we can, and after that it’s really up to our babies,” said NICU RN Spring Bridges. “So some really have the strength to go through what they have to go through and grow outside the womb.”
The nurses really became attached to Saybie during her stay and would always wonder how she was doing, even when they were off the clock.
They made sure to celebrate every single one of her milestones along the way.
They’d handmake signs for every time she gained a pound or when she no longer needed a breathing tube. Saybie’s mom said she loves every single one of Saybie’s nurses and they became friends to her.
“I’m so grateful for them. It was a beautiful experience. I love this hospital, everybody from the staff, the security guard. I feel blessed. She is the smallest baby but she’s mine,” Saybie’s mom said.
The NICU nurses are all so very proud of how far she has come and said that she has a great future ahead of her.
“I just want her to know how strong she is,” said NICU nurse Emma Wiest. “I mean, if she can start off where she was and do as well as she can be, there’s nothing she can’t do.”
You can watch the tear-jerking video the hospital made below.
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