Help for Emilia’s Medical Bills

Hi, my name is Jeremy and this is for my niece Emilia. She is a month old being born at 23 weeks. The truth is we need help. Emilia is in Winnie Palmer Women and Children's Hospital in Orlando, FL at the neonatal intensive care unit and will likely be there for months. Thanks to amazing programs like the Ronald McDonald House my sister is able to stay in Orlando, FL with Emilia while she is in NICU.  The bill is estimated to be about a half a million dollars. Between my mom, me, my sister, and my brother-in-law we are going to be really short on this. We ask for all the help anyone can give. Every cent is going to medical bills and anything left over is going to be donated to help keep other kids who need it going. Thank you all. And please keep praying for Emilia, donations or not, she is still fighting for her life.

Hi. I'm Stephanie, Emmy's mom. I'm not one to normally ask for or accept help from others, but I will give help when needed. But this is a little bit different. My daughter was born 4 months early; through no fault of her own. My husband and I went to my doctor for our 20 week anatomy visit, (To make sure the baby is healthy and growing as she should be) and found out that Emmy was growing exactly as she should be! Yay! Soon after the ultrasound, we were taken into the doctors office, and I am asked if I am feeling any pain: no. Have you had contractions? No...its way too early for that...why do you ask? You are a centimeter dilated and contracting. At this point, the doctor put me on bed rest for the rest of the week, and sent me to see a high risk specialist. This doctor confirmed that I had a short cervix, and the amniotic sac was pushing on my cervix. They couldn't stitch it closed because they worried about breaking my water. So there was an order to take it easy and take a nightly progesterone pill to hopefully slow or stop the contractions. This lasted 4 nights before I wake up early one morning feeling wet downstairs. I call my doctor, who asks me to go into labor and delivery for them to perform a test to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid. Turns out I was leaking amniotic fluid, my water had ruptured on top of the bag, causing a slow leak. I am now 2 cm dilated. They admit me, just in case I went into labor that night. Luckily, I did not. At this point, I was 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant. The doctors wanted to make sure that we were fully aware, that if I gave birth now, the baby would surely die. They would be able to "make her comfortable," but there was no chance of her being saved at that point. At 21 weeks and 6 days, my local hospitals did not have any equipment small enough to help her. After this news, my mother heard about the amazing Winnie Palmer hospital for Women and Babies... Winnie can accept a baby as small as 22 weeks and 6 days old. All I had to do was stay pregnant for at least 1 more week, and our girl has a chance to live! It was so difficult, but I stayed on bed rest for a week. When I was 22 weeks and 6 days pregnant, I felt the full force of standard pregnancy and had bad morning sickness all day. I would not last on an hour long drive; one more night. My mom and I headed for Orlando the next day. 23 weeks exactly! I did have really bad gas pain on the ride there. The gas pains were about 20 minutes apart at this point... I was admitted through triage with a bag in hand, with the hope that they would help me stay pregnant as long as possible. During the triage exam, I was 4 cm dilated. My gas pain is getting worse. The doc tells me that I will be transferred to the 5th floor soon. My pain continues to worsen, and I start contemplating calling my husband out of work. At this point, I am screaming out my pain. My gas pain, surprisingly, turns out to be contractions. I call my husband because I am sure this is it. Luckily, he missed all of the pain before the epidural. My mother is amazing for handling the verbal abuse. By the time he arrives, I felt good. After a night spent in delivery, with very close contractions, I gave birth to our little miracle baby. Emilia, or Emmy, had no intention of waiting any longer! We saw her only for a minute before she was taken away to be intubated. Now, this brave baby has already proven so many people wrong, but she still has a long way to go. It is a miracle that she doesn't have a brain bleed, infection, or that she didn't die a month ago. This is not to say that she doesn't have challenges: she is smaller than a preemie, she is a micro-preemie. Her eyes were still fused shut when she was born, she had a touch of jaundice, low hemoglobin, two blood transfusions so far, an infection, and of course she can't breath on her own. We couldn't hold her for about 2 weeks after she was born. Despite all of this, she is still a baby...she poops a lot, if she could cry, it would be loud, and she loves boob milk from mom. Now that you know how we got here, you can understand that we just want our girl to be okay. We want to spend as much time with her as possible. The bigger she gets, the more we can help take care of her. We have changed her diaper, taken her temperature, wiped down her hands, eyes, ears, and neck, and swabbed her lips and mouth so it doesn't get dry. I am with her every single day.I have been out of work since before she was born. Unfortunately this means that our bills suffer. We would like to ask our friends and family for any help that can be offered. This money will help with her medical bills mostly, but will also help us afford bills and groceries over the coming long months ahead. I thank God for my daughter. I thank you for any help offered. I have attached pictures of her now and when she was born. She has come so far.