Small miracles
Published: June 2, 2006
Matthew and McKenna Baker are typical 2-year-olds: They love to climb, run, chatter to each other and chew on a plethora of household objects.
But their arrival into the world was anything but typical. The twins were born at just 27 weeks, and were in critical condition. Their parents, Denise and Jamie Baker of Horseheads, were terrified.
“Everything was very surreal when we delivered them,” says Denise Baker. “It was about 1 a.m. — and you have no sense of time in the hospital — and there were just so many people around … and they were just so tiny.”
Matthew weighed 2 pounds, 10 ounces and McKenna weighed 2 pounds, 8 ounces. They both spent over 2 1/2 weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira. They are thriving now, says Baker, but they overcame numerous obstacles to get to this point.
Area residents can watch for Matthew and McKenna on the annual Children’s Miracle Network telethon this weekend.
This year, the telethon will take place Saturday and Sunday on WENY-TV, Channel 36, Horseheads. (In previous years, the telethon was broadcast on WETM-TV, Channel 18, Elmira.)
“We’re very excited to be involved with the Children’s Miracle Network. … It’s so important that the money is raised here and stays here, to help the children in our community. … To see these kids, to go out on these stories, you’d never know they had such a battle when they came into this world,” says Pete Veto, general manager of WENY.
Matthew and McKenna certainly had a battle, beginning the moment they were born. Each had their own team of staff members in the delivery room. Both babies needed help breathing, since their lungs were not developed enough yet to breathe on their own.
“Matthew was born first, and he let out this tiny cry — a little peep– and he sounded like a cat. They took him to the NICU and intubated him there (inserted a breathing tube), to help him breathe. But McKenna didn’t cry at all, and they had to intubate her right there, before even taking her to the NICU,” Baker remembers.
In the following months, Matthew had a number of physical difficulties. He developed a hemorrhage in his lung; a blood vessel had burst and his lungs filled with blood. He was repeatedly on and off a ventilator. McKenna’s lungs collapsed; she developed a brain hemorrhage and was temporarily transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester for brain surgery. (She needed a second brain surgery when she was 11 months old.)
“For the first couple of weeks, their condition was so critical, and we really couldn’t have much contact with them, which was so hard,” Baker says. “Initially, you can only hold them for 10 to 15 minutes, once a day. So my mom would visit them but she couldn’t hold them, because that would mean that I couldn’t. … Later, the staff encouraged us to touch them, to talk to them, to sing to them, for their own well-being. I couldn’t wait to do that!”
The twins finally were well enough to go home within the same week of each other, thanks to the staff at the Arnot and the Children’s Miracle Network, Baker says.
All the money donated to the Children’s Miracle Network stays here in Elmira, helping the patients of the hospital’s pediatric and neonatal intensive care units, says Susan Reynolds, the director of the Children’s Miracle Network at Arnot Ogden Medical Center.
The network helps patients in nine counties in the Southern Tier and northern Pennsylvania. Last year, more than 360 infants were treated in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and over 9,000 pediatric patients were treated throughout the hospital, from the pediatric floor to the emergency room, Reynolds says. All those patients benefited from the Children’s Miracle Network in some way, whether it was from a range of services or a range of equipment. Services provided include pediatric trauma, allergy, neurology, ophthalmology, cardiology and a Child Life Program. Life-saving equipment such as fetal monitors and ventilators cost thousands of dollars apiece, and some children use several pieces of equipment for months.
“(The network) has purchased equipment for the NICU, the pediatric floor and for other areas of the medical center such as the emergency room. If a child comes into the ER, they need specific equipment right there because there isn’t time to get it from another floor,” Reynolds explains.
And the neonatal intensive care unit, which has its own specialized equipment, needs enough for numerous babies at once. Reynolds says that on Monday alone, the unit housed 23 babies, and a couple of additional infants were expected to be admitted shortly. She describes the dramatic difference in cost between treating a full-term, healthy infant and treating a critically ill infant.
“A full-term, healthy infant needs nursery backup, but can spend a great deal of time right in the room with the mother. A critically ill infant may need a nurse beside them constantly … plus there’s all the equipment. One baby could easily use $100,000 worth of equipment, depending on the length of their stay,” Reynolds says.
The telethon gives the hospital a chance to celebrate its success stories.
“It’s just amazing to see children doing so wonderfully now, after they were so fragile at birth,” Reynolds says. “Matthew and McKenna (Baker) were so very ill, but you’d never know to look at them now.”
The Baker twins have a very special birthday: March 15. Not only is it special because of their own story, but there’s another reason as well, says Baker:
“Two years earlier, we delivered a baby on that same day. She was only 22 weeks old, and she didn’t make it. I just can’t explain how special it is that they all share the same day.”
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