Most expecting moms spend their pregnancy preparing for their baby’s impending arrival by setting up a nursery, buying tiny infant clothes, and baby proofing the house.
One Iowa mom, however, spent the months before her daughter’s birth planning a funeral and trying to prepare herself for the moment she’d have to say goodbye to her little girl since doctors told them the baby wouldn’t live longer than two hours after birth.
When mom Autumn Dunn was a few months into her pregnancy with baby Fiona Grace, doctors told her and her husband that there was no chance she would be born healthy since the baby had Holoprosencephaly Semilobar or HPE, a condition where the front lobe never separates. The baby also had an enlarged heart and problems with her liver and a vessel.
“One of the last visits, there was fluid on her brain and that a portion of her brain was just missing because of it,” said Dunn. “If she did make it to labor, it would make her heart stop, and she would die.” Doctors suggested she terminate the pregnancy, but Dunn wouldn’t do it. “Just a few days before, we had my mom’s funeral. So my dad and I were planning on buying two plots so that they could be next to each other. The doctors gave me the option to terminate the pregnancy, but I knew that wasn’t an option for me.”
On January 3, the terrifying pregnancy finally came to an end and baby Fiona was born without making a sound. “It was terrifying. And then I heard her first cry, and I just knew. I just knew she’d be okay,” says Dunn. “They were wrong.” Baby Fiona was breathing on her own, hear heart was beating strong, and her brain showed no sign of HPE. Two hours came and went, and baby Fiona was still as strong as ever.
“She’s a miracle,” Dunn said about Fiona, who had her first surgery shortly after birth to drain a cyst on her brain and is now doing well at home. “We went from thinking we were going to have to plan her funeral too, we get to bring her home, and she’s healthy for the most part… She’s proven time and time again that she can take it. She’s so strong.”
Fiona still has plenty of hurdles to face, but Dunn is confident that her little miracle will continue to defy the odds. “You have to keep following your heart and your faith. It’s the only thing that got me through,” says Dunn.
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[Featured Image: Facebook/Autumn Joy Dunn]
Baby Who Was Only Supposed To Survive 2 Hours Is Now 2 Weeks Old is an article from: LifeDaily