NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A baby girl was unexpectedly born four months early in the middle of Hurricane Dorian. Makaylia Jones weighed one pound, seven ounces when she entered the world in September.
To put her size into perspective, that’s about the size of a lemon.
Her parents Latasha Holmes and Michael Jones said their miracle baby is growing stronger each day in the NICU at VCU Medical Center.
On September 6, 2018, Holmes — who was five months pregnant at the time — was at home when she felt shooting pains in her stomach.
“I was screaming like, ‘someone please help me,'” Holmes recalled to 8News. “When I got on the bed, I kept feeling this pressure and when I tried to sit down, I could feel her head coming out.”
Jones, a first-time father, jumped into action and called 9-1-1.
“It was scary. I’m like, ‘my baby is on the bed, you all need to hurry up and get here. My baby is on the bed!'” Jones said.
Makaylia was born 16 weeks early in the amniotic sac.
“The baby is laying right beside her in the sac, and I’m just stuck … I couldn’t move,” Jones recalled.
He wasn’t the only one shocked. It was a once-in-a-career call for the Northumberland County EMS team.
“That is hands down the smallest baby I have ever seen in my life,” Kate Bozeman with Northumberland County EMS told 8News over Skype.
At the time, medivac helicopters were grounded because of Hurricane Dorian, so the EMS team had to drive Makaylia and her mom nearly two hours via ambulance to VCU Medical Center.
“She curled right up in my hand and her feet sat on my tattoo on my wrist, and we just had a pep talk together and we bundled her up and kept her warm,” Bozeman recalled.
Now Makaylia is in the NICU spending her days in an incubator, surrounded by love.
“When I come here and look at her, it is really hard to see her hooked up to things and to have her stay here and not at home,” Holmes said.
But Makaylia is steadily growing, now weighing three pounds, two ounces.
Holmes says Makaylia already has her own personality. She says her baby is always smiling and knows what she does and doesn’t like.
Makaylia will have to stay in the NICU until December 20 — her mother’s original due date. The baby’s family hopes that by then, she’ll be strong enough to go home and live a normal life.
