Madison Hickey and Dylan Statler were expecting their baby girl to come in the summertime, but were shocked when she was born in March, at just 23 weeks old. “It was very scary getting rushed back to OR… I wasn’t sure if I would make it, if she would make it…” reflected Madison.
“It all happened so fast, kind of like a dream… a nightmare,” Dylan explained.
Born weighing just 14 ounces, Evie Statler began an uphill fight for life. Due to her prematurity, many complications arose, and Evie has so far spent “her entire life” in the NICU, as her mother explained. The St. Louis Children’s hospital has given fantastic care and support through all the ups and downs of the Statler’s NICU stay. Dr. Melissa Riley explained that at just 23 weeks, the lungs and immune system are still very immature and need support to develop.
“It’s one thing to survive, but to survive without complications—that’s even more rare…The lungs are often very immature, the intestines are very immature…very prone to infection because the immune system is very immature,” said Dr. Riley.
During their stay at the hospital, Evie’s father Dylan began to express his emotions through painting. He created a piece called “Waiting for Her Arrival,” which was recently accepted and is now on display at the 39th Annual Arts St. Louis Exhibition. He explained, “When you’re expecting someone special to come to your home, you know, you kinda tidy it up, you know, put the flowers in the vase and then you just wait for them to arrive. So that was like a hope.”
That hope sustained them through the past nine months in the NICU. And now, they can take Evie home just in time for Christmas.
“What we’ve seen over the past several weeks is this slow, steady, beautiful progress, and her development is blossoming,” Dr. Riley shared.
Thanks to innovative medical care, preemies are surviving at younger and younger ages. Eliora “Ellie” Schneider of Kansas, was born in 2017 at just 21 weeks and 6 days, also weighing 14 ounces. Born at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri — the first hospital in the area to practice NICU care for babies younger than 24 weeks old — Ellie was able to overcome and develop despite the odds. As Live Action News has reported previously, according to KSBH Kansas City, “‘Nationally… babies born prior to the 24-week mark… have a 6 percent survival rate, but at Saint Luke’s, they have a 50 percent survival rate.’ It’s clear that medical intervention has made a huge difference.”
Evie’s mother Madison tearfully shared how grateful she is for the people who have been caring for her daughter. “We wouldn’t be here without them [NICU staff]… they feel like a second family to us and they’re amazing, they’ve been a light in our lives,” she said.
Dylan expressed that “… for the timing to line up with Christmas, it’s like, symbolic, almost like, yeah, she’s our gift.”
