Her name is Jemima. Yes, just like that Jemima. And though she’s a sweetheart, she was not named after the beloved syrup brand.
“I named her after my great grandmother,” Jemima’s mom Emily Rodriguez told Sapulpa Times, as we celebrated Jemima’s first birthday on Saturday, February 29th—a birthday that she had only a small chance of ever having.
Jemima was born on February 25th, 2019, at 32 weeks, and diagnosed with hydrops fetalis, a serious fetal condition defined as “abnormal accumulation of fluid in two or more fetal compartments.” For Jemima—or “Jem” as her family sometimes calls her—she was born with swelling to her brain, her chest, her abdomen…even her skin tissue.
She weighed just six pounds. The doctors didn’t understand what had caused the hydrops condition, and couldn’t be sure she would ever recover. Jem had been given just a twenty percent chance of surviving.
Things got worse before they got better. As the fluid began to drain away, Jem dropped to under five pounds. Rodriguez had to make trips back and forth to Texas to get Jemima the treatment she needed. After a couple of weeks, the doctors advised her that if Jem wasn’t making progress, they may want to consider pulling the plug. She told them no. “I felt her fight inside me,” Rodriguez said, tears in her eyes. “The first time she squeezed my finger, I felt her strength. I told them no.”
Within a week, things began to turn around for Jemima. The fluid in the left side of her chest went away, and the right side followed soon thereafter. Doctors couldn’t explain it. On March 27th, they were able to remove the tubes and on March 28th, Emily Rodriguez could hold her daughter for the first time. “I cried so much that day,” she said.
By the time Jemima was celebrating her first birthday, you’d never have known she’d been fighting for her life during her first few weeks. The only evidence of her ordeal were the photographs taken each month of her first year. Now she’s walking, clapping and laughing with her friends and family, who celebrated her first birthday at the Sapulpa Senior Citizens Community Center on Dewey Ave. As it happens, February 29th is also Rare Disease Awareness Day.
Emily Rodriguez says that aside from the tumultuous first weeks, Jemima has been developing as normally as any child. “It’s been a miracle,” she says, looking around. “If it wasn’t for the prayers and love and support of all these people here, I’m not sure she would’ve made it. “
