In May, pro-life speaker and author Leah Darrow experienced a medical emergency at just 22 weeks pregnant. Her son Sly, who had to be delivered via emergency C-section to save both of their lives after Darrow developed a sepsis infection, is now home from the hospital more than six months after his birth.
On Sunday, Darrow shared on Facebook, “The homecoming we’ve been praying for. After 199 days in the NICU, we are home. HOME. More details later. Now, I just need to snuggle nonstop with my baby. GLORY TO GOD FOR ALL THINGS!”
Sly was given just a 3% chance of survival when he was born after a blood pathogen led to sepsis and shock for both him and his mother. Doctors had to act quickly to save both of their lives, carrying out an emergency C-section. Both mother and son fought for their lives though doctors predicted Sly — who weighed just one pound, three ounces — would not survive.
“The Docs told us, before the c-section, that he would NOT make it,” Darrow explained in a previous Instagram post. “They informed us that he would more than likely be deaf, blind, have genetic defects, AND the scans showed Sly had bleeding on the brain and fluid in the abdomen. They asked if I wanted to employ ‘life saving measures’ for Sly or let him pass without any interventions.”
“We chose to ‘intervene,’” she said.
Notably, Darrow gave birth in Missouri, where the state’s pro-life law protected preborn children except in cases of medical emergency, and she and her baby were able to receive an emergency delivery, treating both mother and son as patients. (A majority of voters recently passed Amendment 3 in the state, which will make it a constitutional right to intentionally kill preborn children for essentially any reason throughout pregnancy, as the Amendment is extremely broad.)
Two weeks after his birth, Sly was transferred to a higher-level hospital in St. Louis, which was better equipped to care for him, and received surgery there so he could undergo a blood transfusion and receive nutrition through a Boviac line. Darrow remained in the hospital recovering until May 11.
Though he coded twice and dealt with multiple complications, Sly continued to overcome the odds against him. More recently, he was transferred back to the hospital where he was born —Mercy Springfield — where he underwent surgery to place a G-tube and repair a hernia.
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” Darrow wrote on Facebook after the transfer back the hospital in their hometown. “So many people have carried us during this time. So many. So many strangers that have become family. So many people feeding us. People sheltering us. People providing for our daily needs. I’ve never been more inspired by humanity than these past 6 months.”
Sly spent nearly 200 days in the NICU, weighing 9 pounds, two ounces – a 900% increase — before he was discharged. He has chronic lung disease from his preterm birth, which causes struggles with breathing and eating; while a lot is still unknown for Sly and his future, he continues to progress.
His life is a testament to the fact that induced abortion is not medically necessary, even in medical emergencies. If a pregnancy must end, as Darrow’s did, there is no need to intentionally kill the baby in order to end the pregnancy. Induced delivery and emergency C-sections are standard procedures that respect the lives of both mother and child.
Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.
