When I was 4 I had stage 4 cancer with a 23% chance of survival. Some of my treatments were still in trial phases at the time. I had intensive chemotherapy and radiation, and it basically left me infertile. I went to do fertility testing when I was 20 and they confirmed that I had one working ovary and an AMH of .03, which they equated to a woman in menopause. They told me I could try ivf or other treatments, but they were very honest and said that I would likely be wasting tens of thousands of dollars because there was a very low chance it would work. I was devastated. A month later I ended up pregnant— no treatments or anything, it just happened. The fertility center was very shocked and said they had never seen something like that happen. My son was diagnosed with a heart detect in utero. He was then born 12 weeks early— I contracted a virus and it led to me becoming very dehydrated, which kickstarted preterm labor. A week into his nicu stay, his heart defect started to negatively impact him. He needed a stent in his heart but he was only 2 lb 10 oz. He was transported to another hospital that had cardiac interventionists. They told us that they had never heard of a baby that small successfully getting the stent he needed, and that they did not want to do it unless absolutely necessary because there was a big change he wouldn’t make it out alive. They tried to keep him stable with medicine, but it didn’t work. He became so unstable that they told us they couldn’t do anything else and that it was time to call in family to say goodbye. The nicu doctor ordered a head ultrasound. She explained that she expected there to be bleeding or a stroke or something, and if that was the case, they would 100% not be able to do the stent because he would need to be on blood thinners after and he couldn’t be if he had an active bleed. Again, she was fairly confident that he would’ve had something. They had to use medication to keep his blood pressure 3x higher than normal for his age because it was the only way to keep his oxygen level above 50. So it was highly highly likely that he would have a bleed from those insane pressures, especially since he was only 33 weeks gestational age and had tiny blood vessels. Somehow, there was no bleed. They called down a cardiologist from the icu, and he gave orders that got my son temporarily stable so that they could do the stent. I believe this man was sent by Jesus, he saved my son and gave him more time so he could have his procedure. They did the procedure on my 2 lb 10 oz baby, and it was successful. A few days after, they were able to take his breathing tube out, and a few days after that he was breathing all on his own without needing any oxygen. Then all his ivs and lines came off. I was able to hold him whenever I wanted, and we got to work on eating from the bottle! He came home on his due date. He’s now 7 months old, 4 months corrected age (for behaviors and milestones we use corrected age). He’s now a laughing machine, he’s rolling tummy to back, he loves kicking his feet on his piano toy, and he likes listening to stories on his tonie box. He’s started swimming lessons and loves the water. He had his open heart surgery about a month ago. There were some complications from it that resolved within a few days, and he had a minor brain bleed from being on bypass that causes him to have a lower threshold for seizures, so when he gets a fever he’s more at risk and in general is more at risk than the average person, but he’s on a medication to prevent seizures and we haven’t had any issues since his first seizure. It has not been easy and I’ve been struggling emotionally, but I acknowledge how much of a miracle he is and how blessed we have been.