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Cambridge mom brings daughter home for Thanksgiving

E-mail|Link|Comments () November 25, 2009 03:18 PM

Video by John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Cambridge mom Mary Doyle talks about daughter, Grace, who weighed just one pound and eight ounces when born and is now going home for the first time on Thanksgiving. Doyle shared a hug with Franciscan Hospital for Children staffer Marybeth Rosa. Hospital spokeswoman Deanna Dwyer talks about the kind of care Grace received.

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A Cambridge mother is bringing her daughter home for the first time today – 141 days after she was born, weighing just one pound and eight ounces, at a Boston hospital.

And Grace Danielle’s homeward journey begins after she – and her mother – have spent the last 36 days at the Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, where the infant learned how to breathe on her own with her mother by her side.

As she prepared to leave today, Mary Doyle collected a stuffed bear and a hug from hospital staffer Marybeth Rosa.

“Look, it’s her size!’’ Doyle joked, while holding her now-thriving daughter in the crook of her left arm.

Rosa told Doyle, “It’s something to remember us by. We’re going to miss you guys.’’

Doyle said thank you with a hug and later praised the staff. “They are very good at their jobs here,’’ said Doyle, 41, who is celebrating the birth of her first child.

According to the hospital and the mother, Doyle developed preeclampsia during the first 28 weeks of her pregnancy. Reacting to the problem with Doyle’s blood pressure, doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital stabilized Doyle’s health and safely delivered Grace on July 7.

“They were wonderful, too,’’ Doyle said of the staff at Brigham and Women’s. “They saved her. They actually saved both of us.’'

Her daughter was so tiny, Doyle said, that her first baby bottle looked like it was a toy made for a doll. But then her daughter gripped the bottle with both hands.

“She put her little hands together and it looked like she was saying grace,’’ Doyle recalled with a smile. “And then we fed her with her first little bottle. It was great.’’

Grace spent the first several weeks in neonatal intensive care before shifting in October to the Franciscan where she stayed until today. Doyle has spent the past 36 nights sleeping on a foldaway bed in her daughter’s room while her husband, who asked that his name not be published, tackled daily duties.

Deanna Dwyer, marketing manager for the hospital, said Grace and other preemies are given care in the pulmonary rehabilitation program. “It really helps those babies to get started the way they need to -- to get home,’’ Dwyer said.

While the infant will be attending her first Thanksgiving, Grace won’t be having any turkey for dinner.

“No,’’ Doyle said, with a laugh. “But we will be take a picture of her next to the turkey. It’s 20 pounds so she will be like a little peanut next to it."