Meet Baby Sophie…

Well, actually Sophie’s been around for a while now. That’s how she knows all these tricks like pulling out her oxygen! I first met Sophie and her family in the Peapod at the Stollery’s NICU when she was about two months old. I was shooting for the ante-natal consult project and her family had agreed to be a part of the project. The ante-natal consult project enables families who are expecting premature or medically fragile babies to engage in meaningful conversations with neonatologists prior to delivery of their own child(ren).  The following are a couple of the images that were included in the project.

Sophie’s parents, Jason and Andrea, contacted me again through Ronald McDonald House asking if we could do an in-hospital family session. In my questionnaire, I ask families to explain why they are staying at Ronald McDonald House and this is what they wrote,

Sophie was born on July 7th, 2017 at 23 weeks and 3 days gestation. Because of her extreme prematurity she had to be intubated for over two months, lost 2/3rds of her small bowel, had laser eye surgery to correct ROP, had her PDA surgically closed and had several transfusions, x-rays, ultrasounds, etc. Because of her bowel loss, Sophie now has short gut syndrome which is a malabsorption disorder characterized by poor weight gain and difficulty absorbing nutrients. Her bowel is currently in two pieces while it heals. In January the surgeon plans to reconnect it and slowly introduce milk again. The goal is that with time it will adapt and compensate for the missing parts. Despite Sophie’s complications, her longterm outlook is good. She’s almost off oxygen and hopefully her bowel issues will have little to no impact on her quality of life.

Sophie is now 5 months old and although she wasn’t quite as excited as we were to do a little Christmas inspired session she managed to suffer through it, even pulling mom’s hair for the first time.

When I asked Sophie’s parents to describe her they wrote “strong, sweet and beautiful” and I couldn’t agree more. But I would have to say her parents are pretty awesome too!

Merry Christmas to this little warrior, her family and all those families spending this Christmas in hospital. We are thinking of you and sending positive thoughts for a healthy and happy 2018.

Love the Wolfe Pack