More than five months after Sienna Rose Hunter was born, Diane Rogalski was finally able to hold her stepgranddaughter for the first time.
“She’s amazing,” said Rogalski, cradling Sienna, who weighed less than a pound when she was delivered Sept. 1 via an emergency cesarean section at Advocated Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
Sienna is now home in Round Lake with her parents, Christine and Demitrius Hunter, and stepsister, Giana Hunter, 8, after spending about five months in the Advocate Children’s Hospital, where she had three surgeries and was watched by a team of specialists to ensure she was breathing and getting proper nutrition.
Sienna remains hooked up to a feeding tube, and is getting oxygen delivered through her nose, but she now weighs more than six pounds and is expected to live a “pretty normal life,” said Dr. Miriam Rajpal, neonatologist at the Park Ridge hospital. Sienna is receiving physical therapy, and the feeding tube and oxygen should be gone in several months, she said.
Rajpal said she and a team of hospital specialists consider Sienna a “miracle baby” because her odds for survival were less than 50 percent.
“(The odds) are probably even less than that, but there isn’t a lot of data for babies born less than 400 grams (.88 pounds),” Rajpal said.
Sienna weighed 390 grams.
“We are all thrilled. To go home with as few complications as she has, she has made us all extremely happy,” Rajpal said.
Apart from getting hardly any sleep caring for their daughter, the Hunters say they feel more rested than they have for many months.
“Every day I find myself relaxing more,” said Christine Hunter, who, along with her husband, had to learn how to monitor the oxygen and feeding tube.
The couple now takes turns feeding her every four hours.
At about 21 weeks of pregnancy, Christine learned at a routine checkup that she had several conditions that put her baby at high risk.
A specialist recommended she have her baby at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, which was named by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 50 hospitals in the country for pediatric neonatology in 2015.
On Sept. 1, at about midnight, Christine said she woke her husband and said, “I know there’s something wrong. I need to go to the hospital.”
The baby was not due for another 15 weeks.
She had been feeling pain under her ribs for about two weeks, and now was feeling it in her arm. She had read about a rare condition in pregnant women called HELLP syndrome. HELLP refers to hemolysis, the breaking down of red blood cells, elevated liver enzymes and a low platelet count, Rajpal said.
“I read that one in four women who get it will die, and that it’s easy to misdiagnose,” Christine said.
When the Hunters arrived at the hospital, Christine underwent testing and physicians confirmed she had HELLP.
“They said they needed to get the baby immediately,” Christine said.
“HELLP can be very dangerous to moms, causing, among other problems, severe seizures,” Rajpal said. “Basically the treatment is to deliver the baby.”
Still 15 weeks from full term, the baby was underdeveloped, Rajpal said.
The Hunters had to make a decision.
“We went into the hospital at 1 a.m. and the baby was born about 7:45 p.m.,” Demitrius Hunter said.
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“I’ve never seen a baby that small,” he said.
Christine recalled: “They rolled the baby out of the room in an incubator after the C-section. All I saw were these huge eyes. I knew right away she had my eyes.”
Christine said she recalled a physician saying to her, “We don’t know if we have a tube small enough to get down the baby’s throat.”
A tube was needed to help the baby breathe, Rajpal said.
Sienna Rose was kept in a heated incubator in a dark room to simulate being in the womb, said Christine, who spent several days in intensive care after the C-section.
“They put blinders on her eyes,” and they found the right size breathing tube to put into her mouth, Christine said.
Christine, who worked as a full-time nanny, left her job to be with her baby, visiting her daily and hoping she would continue to gain weight.
She said providing breast milk to be fed to Sienna through a tube was “almost therapy for me, to be able to produce the milk and nutrition for her.”
Premature babies often require heart surgery and laser eye surgery to prevent potential blindness and other issues, Rajpal said. Sienna required three surgeries, and for a fragile, premature baby, they were serious procedures, Rajpal said.
Through it all, Demitrius said he remained positive, prayed and relied on his family for comfort.
Sienna Rose came home with her parents Jan.28.
“I wasn’t sure what was more exciting — my wedding or bringing her home,” Christine said. “I was excited. I had butterflies.”
Christine said she believes the decision she and her husband made to go to the hospital Sept. 1 saved her and her baby’s lives.
“Listen to your instincts,” she said.
Added Demitrius, “I’m so thankful we went to the right hospital. There were scary times when we had to think about decisions.”
While being held by Christine, Sienna Rose gurgled a bit and looked into her mother’s big eyes.
“I just want her to always be happy,” Christine said.
Sheryl DeVore is a freelancer for the News-Sun.