DENVER — Tilly was born on Nov. 6, more than three months before her Feb. 16 due date, weighing just 1 pound and 1 ounce. She spent the next nine months in the neonatal intensive care unit at HCA HealthONE Rocky Mountain Children's Hospital in Denver.
Her mother, Anna Hill, said nothing could have prepared her for what that experience would be like.
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"It's a roller coaster. Some days, I'd have a great time in the NICU and some days, I'd go home just frustrated. But every day, I remember walking through those front doors and I would just take a deep breath and be like, 'OK, just give me the strength for whatever is happening upstairs,'" Hill said.
Tilly was born at 25 weeks — close to what doctors consider the threshold of viability. She weighed below the fourth percentile even for her gestational age.
Staff at the hospital called her the queen of the NICU.
"I think partially because she was there for so long, and also because she was a little demanding," Hill said.
Two years after leaving the hospital, Tilly returned for a reunion with John Ross, the associate neonatologist who was her very first physician.
Ross said Tilly stood out among his patients.
"I remember Tilly was one of our more complicated patients in my memory, and she presented a lot of challenges over the course of her relatively long hospitalization," Ross said. "Sometimes, it's a simple thing for patients to walk out the door, but for her, it was a big deal.”
For Ross, the reunion was a rare opportunity. He said neonatologists do not often get to see their patients after they leave the hospital.
"You feel like a rock star, right? You know, it's so much fun to see them when they're older, and they're — well, I didn't feel like a rock star, I guess, when she was crying when I picked her up," Ross said with a laugh.
Hill said the NICU staff — doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others — became like family during those nine months.
"I want people to know that the NICU is a place just where miracles truly happen every single day," Hill said.
September is NICU Awareness Month.
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