Doctors said her baby would be stillborn, but now he’s a healthy toddler

At just 20 weeks gestation, Tammy Smith’s water broke. Already having lost a child, the young mom was devastated when doctors told her and her husband Adam that their baby would likely be stillborn. Told to plan a funeral for their son, the couple took that advice and planned for the worst. They picked out a blue coffin, a horse and carriage, and music and flowers for their son’s funeral.

“I was desperate for hope,” explained Smith, “but they told me there was none and that our son couldn’t survive. They wanted me to terminate but I couldn’t.”

After being sent home from the hospital with the doctor’s advice to prepare for the worst, Smith discovered a Facebook page called Little Heartbeats. The creator of the page works to raise awareness for the preterm rupture of membranes and offers advice for parents experiencing the fear of such a situation. Smith did everything the parents on the site told her to try including drinking extra water every day, bed rest, and requesting steroids to help her baby’s lungs develop.

Thanks to this advice, Smith was able to hold labor off for almost 10 more weeks. Despite the risk of infection for her and her baby, and even though her baby boy Jesse was nonresponsive at birth, the little boy survived.

“I owe his life to that Facebook page that told me what to do and I followed every scrap of information I could find when the doctors had given up,” Smith told The Sun. “To go into delivery being told to prepare for your baby to be stillborn is horrific, and to come out with a healthy baby is unimaginable.”

The baby boy gave his parents a scare because he wasn’t breathing when he was first born, but he finally gave out a faint cry that shocked everyone. Despite the odds stacked against him, he is now a healthy one-year-old.

“He is a miracle, there’s no doubt about it in my mind,” said Smith. “[…] I want other mothers to know there is always hope. Jesse is living proof.”