It seems that this Thanksgiving, a particular New Jersey family would celebrate the holiday, counting every blessing, including their baby. Baby Sully was born “following a tough pregnancy,” according to PEOPLE, who weighed only 2 lbs. 3 oz. Rejoicing over overcoming the trials and tribulations post little “Sully Bear’s” birth and finally making it to their house with the little one, mother Colleen Weimer shares her emotions with PEOPLE.
“It was just the best feeling just to finally be in our house, under one roof.” The story of Baby Sully, who is just seven months old, is indeed remarkable, for she has undergone a series of health complications the moment she took her breath outside her mother’s womb.
Weimer revealed to the outlet that while pregnant, she was aware of the “possibility” that she could have preeclampsia, a medical condition with heightened blood pressure during pregnancy. She had experienced a similar condition while she was pregnant with her daughter Quinn, born at 28 weeks.
She shared, “I was worried about the possibility of having a premature baby. Then, when we went for our 20-week scan, we found out that things were a little bit more serious.”
During the scan, the doctors revealed that something “didn’t look right with the baby’s heart”. As per the doctors’ suggestion, she underwent a fetal echocardiogram. During the process, the doctor there thought that “she saw something called transposition of the great arteries”, which is, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, “a birth defect of the heart in which the two main arteries carrying blood out of the heart – the main pulmonary artery and the aorta – are switched in position, or “transposed.””
Dr. Elizabeth Goldmuntz, an attending cardiologist in the Cardiac Center at CHOP, confirmed that Weimer’s baby had a congenital heart defect when she was 22 weeks pregnant with her. She would have to undergo an open heart surgery after she was born.
From then on, it was like walking on a tightrope for Weimer since Goldmuntz had revealed a premature birth can be difficult “because the heart’s so small, to begin with, and those vessels and everything need to be developed.” She had to stretch the pregnancy period as far as she could, and that’s what she did.
On April 17, Weimer not only celebrated her own birthday but also gave birth to her beautiful Sully at 30 weeks. She said, “She’s my birthday twin.” Five weeks following her birth, the baby had to undergo a major heart surgery, the Arterial Switch, to reconstruct her heart. The doctors thought that she wouldn’t be able to make it due to her weight and size. However, the baby toughed it out, weighing only about 3.5 lbs that day, according to PEOPLE.
Weimer looks back on the difficult times, expressing her gratitude to all those who stood by her, especially her “really supportive family”, including her parents and mother-in-law who nurtured Quinn and 9-year-old Reid. She said, “With her being so unstable, I didn’t ever really feel comfortable going home.”
Finally, after spending 158 days at CHOP, Baby Sully was declared healthy to go home with her mother and the rest of the family. Weimer shared, “After everything that she’s been through, it’s just absolutely amazing that she could come through it and just have the sweetest little personality, and we just absolutely adore her.”