COLUMBUS, Ohio — On Nov. 16, 2019, Sara Rott and her husband Dan welcomed their little girl Lucy. Her original due date was Feb. 26.

What You Need To Know

  • Sara and Dan Rott reflect on their premature birth journey

  • They had their daughter Lucy at just 26 weeks

  • Director of Infant Wellness talks lack of signs to determine premature births

“I’ve been into the NICU, and I’ve seen small babies, but then when I saw Lucy, it was — I mean I was terrified. I had never seen anything that small before in my life,” said Dan.

Sara and Dan went out of town just a week before Lucy was born. There were no pregnancy complications to speak of.

“Pregnancy was going smooth; everything was great,” said Sara.

Days later, Sara started experiencing extreme pain, prompting a visit to the hospital and grim projections from doctors.

“They basically said you have to get her over 30 weeks, and we really want you to get to 34 weeks. Once it hit 30 weeks, it was going to be day to day we were basically going to be doing ultrasounds every other day,” said Dan.

Lucy was born just 26 weeks into Sara's pregnancy, but with the help of doctors and nurses, she made it past her first birthday.

Director of Infant Wellness at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Christine Sander says she fits into a statewide statistic.

“The prematurity rate for our earliest born babies the less than 32 week old gestational age hovers between 1.8% and 3% of births,” said Sander.

She says there are no signs to detect the likelihood of having a premature birth.

“There is unfortunately not one key driver of a birth becoming premature. If there werex, it would be a lot easier to coordinate the intervention to impact that.”

And while Lucy still has some health issues today, such as needing a feeding tube, the Rott's are cherishing their journey.

“She might not be 100% the normal child that everyone would expect to be. From where we started at one pound to barely the size of my hands to now, just to show people as hard as it is and as difficult as the journey will be as much of a rollercoaster, as Sara says it is, in the end it’s still the greatest. I wouldn't change a moment of it," said Dan.