Ezra James Hessel entered this world in quite an extraordinary way. Everything was moving along as normal until about two weeks before he entered this world. We were given a diagnosis of excess amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios- occurs in about 1-2% of pregnancies) without an understanding of why it was there. This caused us to believe he might come early, but not 19 weeks early.

On December 26th, we checked into the hospital after discovering Gina’s water was slowly leaking. This was a major concern for them seeing as Gina was only 22 weeks pregnant and this was the very earliest this NICU would care for an infant.

Children’s hospital of WI is one of the few in the country equipped to do so. They had a long conversation with us and gave us 3 options: Terminate the pregnancy, go home, and wait it out or stay at the hospital under supervision for as long as possible. We also were asked if when he was born, we wanted to have the NICU team present or not. At 22 weeks, his odds of survival were around 15%. If we could wait until at least 26 weeks, those odds would go up dramatically.

We knew we wanted to stay safe at the hospital & pregnant for as long as possible. We also wanted NICU to be present to care for him immediately. So that was our plan. However, only 2 days later, on December 28th at 4:15am, Gina’s water fully broke and she was 3cm dilated.

She was rushed up to labor and delivery where they deemed this a major concern. The doctors told us that normally they would rush into an emergency c-section but that the procedure was not safe for Gina or Ezra at his age. So, we were told to wait it out, even though they could feel his foot and hand coming down already.

During the early morning of December 29th, we discovered the cord had prolapsed. Yet another major concern for the doctors who still said we just needed to wait it out. Doctors left the room and told us his odds of survival had dropped dramatically below 15%.

At this time, they asked us if we wanted to check the heartbeat. To them, it didn’t make much of a difference in their care for Gina or Ezra, but they wanted us to choose when we might face the reality that there was no heartbeat. We decided to check and with God's will, Ezra had a strong heartbeat!

Gina was determined to keep him safe and did her best to hold off on delivery for 6+ hours until she could get her last round of lung steroids & magnesium for brain protection for Ezra to have the best chance after being born.

Finally, it was almost safe to give the final round of steroids around 7am so at 6:43am we checked the heartbeat again, and to the doctor’s surprise, he was still beating strong. We kept faith that God wanted Ezra to be born despite his low odds. When the doctor came in during the morning to check, she said she was “shocked” he still had a heartbeat and referred to it as an act of God, a miracle.

Once the steroids had been administered, they checked on her again and she was now 5cm dilated and they felt more of Ezra coming down. The Doctor said it would be best for us to push and deliver him now. So, after about 25 minutes of active labor, Ezra James Hessel was born at 8:47am on December 29th, 2022. He weighed 1lb 4oz. Thank God, he was a little on the larger side for his age.

There were at least 15 people in the room assisting with the delivery and to resuscitate Ezra. He was immediately rushed to the NICU room with a full team of doctors working on him. Gina was doing well and being well taken care of by her doctor, so David was able to go by Ezra in the delivery room as well as with the doctors to the NICU.

His journey will be a long one. Somewhere between 4-6 months if everything goes well in the NICU. We are praying hard every day for his battle. Thank God for his miracle that Ezra made it through the first stage, but the journey has just begun.