By Megan Norris
As Australia’s tiniest baby, Elora De Bondi, made her entrance into the world four months premature and weighing less than a tub of butter, doctors warned her mother she had no chance of surviving.
But at 319g, and barely as long as the pen the special-care nurse used to record her miracle birth, the little battler had other plans.
‘Tough little nut’
Single mum Adele De Bondi, 29, maintained a vigil beside Elora’s humidicrib in the intensive care nursery of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. And the tiny tot defied incredible odds when she survived and went home seven months later.
Today Adele is counting her blessings, eternally grateful to the army of medical experts who saved the “tough little nut” — who obviously inherited the same stubborn streak which gave her a first chance at survival.
“From the moment I saw her, I knew she was going to make it,” Adele, a nurse, tells Woman’s Day, gently kissing her baby. Doctors believed Elora was too weak to survive labour, and too tiny for the ventilators that save the lives of hundreds of premature Australian babies every year.
Early problems
Little Elora’s battle began last January, even before she was born. A routine 22-week scan revealed Adele’s pregnancy wasn’t as normal as it seemed.
Elora’s kicks signalled a healthy foetus, but the scan revealed an abnormally small baby inside a tiny uterus, where the usual amniotic fluid was in short supply.
Restricted blood flow to the baby meant Adele’s placenta was at risk of shutting down, and doctors predicted a spontaneous early labour, which such a young baby couldn’t survive.
“With almost no amniotic fluid acting as a buffer, the strong kicks I felt were a sign of something badly wrong,” says Adele, who was told her baby would be born within days, suffering immature lungs and possible disabilities.
A second scan on January 29 showed her baby wasn’t growing and was likely to be stillborn. Elora wasn’t due until May 18, and doctors held out little hope, even when Adele asked if a caesarean might improve her baby’s chances.
“They said it wouldn’t make any difference because the baby had no chance of surviving.”
With her instinct telling her that her baby would be born alive, Adele, from Melbourne’s Balwyn North, demanded the surgery. “It’s the only time in my entire life I’ve been thankful for my stubbornness.”
So at 24 weeks and three days pregnant, Adele was rushed to theatre, where a faint squeak at 10.42pm told her that her baby was alive.
“She was 319 grams, 60 grams lighter than required for intubation, and smaller than the hospital’s smallest baby, born at 374 grams eight years earlier.”
Read the full story in Woman’s Day (on-sale December 31).
