World Prematurity Day | Diary of an early birth

For Dounia Berrada, November is not a month like any other. A week ago, her “miracle” baby, born at 24 weeks, turned 2 years old. Even more, Wednesday marks World Prematurity Day. Meeting with a mother and an aunt who now wish to “give back to others”.

Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin
Press

Installed in the corner of the living room, Alya observes her surroundings, laughs then takes on a decided air. She stands up and hobbles proudly. “This is a recent and very important step,” says her mother, Dounia Berrada, who receives us in Brossard with two essential pairs of shoulders, those of her twin sister, Fadila, and her mother.

The day after our visit, the toddler was going to blow out two candles. Another significant milestone: it is often at this age that parents stop using a corrected age to measure their “premature” baby’s learning.

It is hard to believe, seeing her frolic, that Alya was born at 24 weeks, extremely premature “on the verge of viability”. More incredible, the newborn spent her first hours of life in an ambulance, the time of a snowy journey between Longueuil and Sherbrooke.

Objective: 24 weeks

Flashback: Dounia passes her early pregnancy in an anxiety-provoking marital relationship. At 20 weeks, a morphological ultrasound announces a gloomy prognosis. The cervix is ​​more than a centimeter dilated. “I was told, ‘There is very little chance that the baby will survive. We can still try to make an emergency strapping to close the cervix. ” I said: “OK, we are trying everything for everything.” ”

The minimum objective: to reach 24 weeks, “the magic number”. This is exactly the moment when Dounia begins to feel cramps as sharp as they are unbearable. The future mother must go to the Pierre-Boucher hospital in Longueuil. There, the staff reassured her about her “small contractions”. Dounia still spends the night “under observation, just in case.”

A doctor appears running. The baby’s legs appear. A dilemma arises. First option: a natural childbirth, which preserves the mother but almost certainly condemns the baby. Second option: a cesarean, which spares Alya but poses significant risks for the mother. Without hesitation, Dounia gives the same answer as at 20 weeks: “We try everything for everything. ”

Pierre-Boucher’s team is supported by tertiary resources from Sainte-Justine during the intervention. At the same time, staff are working hard to have Alya urgently transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit. The result of the phone calls looks like a sentence: “M^me Berrada, no one wants to take your child. The only place we found is in… Sherbrooke. ”

Miracle baby

So begins a life at 24 weeks: a race against the clock from Longueuil to Sherbrooke under the first snow in November. At the CHUS-Fleurimont, which hosts 650 g of hope, the medical team is stunned. “The doctor called me the next day and said, ‘M^me Berrada, it’s a wonder your daughter didn’t have a brain hemorrhage. We don’t understand why they brought her to us. ” ”

While the bedridden mother recovers from a bleeding placental abruption, her twin scours rental sites looking for accommodation at the dawn of the holiday season. The passage of the Berrada family in Estrie will have required three moves, the first from Brossard to Orford.

Dounia was able to see her baby Alya – brood, masked and tubed – seven days after birth. Four months of “roller coasters” followed. The mother becomes familiar with terms such as nosocomial infections, bradycardia, hypoxia, severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia, thrombus or edema.

Small progress nonetheless engenders great joys. “We were celebrating all the good news: diaper size changes, weight gain, increased bottle doses, the removal of the incubator cover, the wearing of pajamas. ”

One fine day in March, Dounia and Fadila receive a call while on their way to the CHUS-Fleurimont. “Alya had already left in an ambulance,” says the mother. A place had become available in Montreal. The family remodels their clubs during the night and will find their home in Brossard in the early morning.

The newborn will spend a month at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, then will be discharged after 144 days of hospitalization. Over the days, weeks, months, the mini Alya makes giant leaps.

Dounia feels privileged to have been able to count on her sister – “like a second parent” -, on her mother and on a dedicated primary nurse. The Berrada twins now want to “give back to others”. They created the One Day at a Time Foundation, a famous phrase in neonatal units.

Thanks to a crowdfunding campaign, Alya’s mother and aunt distributed 400 logbooks to hospitals in Quebec. The tool, halfway between the diary, the diary and the reminder, is “a beautiful memory to keep after the storm”, explains Fadila. “You are going to come out of this trauma with something positive, with the journey of your champion. You are going to see how resilient your child has been, and how resilient you have been. ”

Dounia would have liked to have such a journal to support the journey of her champion, from her first laps in an ambulance to her first steps in the family home. “They say that some premas will not be able to become great athletes, great runners. But who knows? To see the evolution of my daughter, there is nothing impossible. It is the little beings who give us the greatest lessons. ”

Visit the Foundation’s website One day at a time