About 25 weeks into Sabine Grabarczyk’s pregnancy, she was told by her doctor that her placenta wasn’t providing her unborn daughter Emilia enough nutrition to properly develop – or even survive.
Sabine and her husband, Lukas, were warned that their unborn daughter, Emilia, might not survive, regardless of when she was born. There was a chance she could die in Sabine’s womb from lack of nutrition, but there was also a chance of her dying from being too prematurely born.
Her parents decided to have their daughter be born via C-section at just 26 weeks into pregnancy.
Emilia weighed barely eight ounces and measured only nine inches. Each of her feet were barely the size of an adult’s thumbnail.
For several months, Emilia’s doctors weren’t certain if she would survive. She had to be fed through a tiny tube and drank water dripped from a cotton ball, and there was little else doctors could do aside from shower her with TLC.
Six months after Emilia’s birth, doctors finally deemed her safe; she would survive. After being supported by a massive team of pediatricians, gynecologists, and pediatric surgeons, Emilia finally grew to be large enough to be stable and healthy.
Her doctors have since nicknamed her “the little fighter.”
Sabine has described the experience as being one of “many difficult days and many tears.” But it was “clear” that Emilia “wanted to survive.”
