Home sweet home
Parents of nano-preemie born at 23 weeks bring daughter home after months in hospital
Paizlee Rose Adams has come a long way. At just 23 weeks inutero, the nano-preemie made her entrance into the world – much to the worry of her parents, Emily McCardle and Andy Adams. “She was so small. Weighing about a pound,” said McCardle as she held open the palm of her hand, indicating that the baby could fit there.
Shortly after her birth, Paizlee underwent heart surgery, eye treatments to prevent blindness and dozens of other tests to ensure she was developing properly.
Now, at seven months old, since her early birthdate, Paizlee is making herself at home. Literally.
“It still doesn’t feel real. Sometimes I’ll be at work and realize that I can go home on lunch and see all of my girls,” Adams said with a bright smile, moving his gaze from Paizlee, to McCardle, and then to the pair’s two dogs. McCardle and Adams brought Paizlee home at the end of October from the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.
“It was a long road to get here. There were moments when we felt so close to bringing her home, but then something would happen and it’s like we took five steps backward. We certainly were frustrated and defeated,” said McCardle.
“We lived in the hospital so long, adjusting to life at home was hard at first.
“But it’s been really great. For being so young, she hasn’t had any major issues. Now our biggest battle is feeding her.”
It was a struggle for Adams to peel himself away from his daughter and McCardle, and then ultimately the pair’s dogs after returning home for a number of days.
Adams added, “The crappiest part was that when I had to come home for work, I didn’t want to leave them. But we’d need a paycheck.
So, after being home for a while I didn’t want to leave our dogs. I wanted them to know we still loved them too, but I’d also want to be with Emily and Paizlee.” While most of Paizlee’s time was spent at the IWK, she did spend small amounts of time at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown and Prince County Hospital (PCH) in Summerside.
“She’s mainly fed through a tube that goes right into her stomach. One day, after being fed at PCH she basically power puked everything up. Then for a while after that, it’s like every time she was fed, we knew it was going to happen again, it was just a matter of when,” said McCardle. Eventually the call was made to transfer Paizlee back to the IWK in hopes of determining the cause.
“We suspect the issues were caused because her stomach is probably quite underdeveloped. Recently, she’s done well. But’s she’s also been pulling out the feeding tube, so I’ve been trying her on the bottle. When this happens, she just takes smaller amounts of milk at a time,” she explained. Now, just weeks away from Christmas and the New Year, Adams and McCardle are looking forward to a special Christmas with Paizlee and other family members.
“Not only is Paizlee here with us, but my sister will be home with her young boy. It will be the first time in a number of years we’ll be together. It’s going to be really special,” he said. McCardle added, “Before Paizlee, I was never really into decorating for Christmas.”
“We’d have a small tree, but I’m sure we’ll spoil her. Get every ‘baby’s first Christmas’ item we can find,” she concluded with a laugh.