Monday's Internet Edition, May 12, 2008.
Raven Lee, 3, is th is year's March of Dimes ambassador
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Thomasville Middle School teacher Robin Lee smiles at her nearly three-year-old daughter Raven, who was born prematurely and is this year's WalkAmerica ambassador for the Thomasville campaign.
TIMES photo/Kristen Johnson |
Features Editor
- To look at little Raven Lee, you wouldn’t know she was born prematurely.
The bright-eyed toddler — who will turn three on Feb. 20 — was as animated and curious as any other child on Monday morning, when WalkAmerica team captains from across Thomasville met at Memorial United Methodist Church to kick off the 2006 campaign.
Her hearing aids didn’t seem to bother her a bit, and she certainly didn’t miss the smallest detail of what was going on around her. Fascinated by a few sticks of gum, she smiled broadly at those who waved at her.
“She is my blessing,” her mother, Thomasville Middle School teacher Robin Lee, said of her daughter. “People ask me if telling her story is upsetting or if I would rather not talk about it, but I’m proud to. I love telling her story. She is a miracle baby.”
Raven was born four months premature.
Born at Thomasville Medical Center, the little girl weighed just one pound, 12 ounces and was smaller than the length of her mother’s hand.
She was immediately transported to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, where she spent a good deal of time on a ventilator and in an incubator.
The incubator was a mixed blessing, though. It ruined little Raven’s eyesight by destroying developing eye cells — and so it was that she had laser eye surgery before she was two months old.
“She’d be blind otherwise,” Lee said of her daughter. “Thanks to that surgery, she now sees very well, even though she has to wear glasses — when she leaves them on her face.”
The hardest part, Lee said, was the separation from her daughter.
“I couldn’t hold her for a whole month,” she said. “She couldn’t be out of the incubator for very long once the month was up, so my husband and I would take turns holding her.”
Lee was at the hospital every day to visit her daughter. She went back to work to prepare for End-of-Grade testing, and when Raven was ready to come home, took a second maternity leave.
“Thomasville City Schools was so very supportive of me,” she said. “I was — and still am to this day — so blessed to have their support.”
But once Raven was brought home and began to try out her newfound power of speech, her parents discovered the little girl would have more problems.
“We could tell her baby babble wasn’t quite right, so we took her in for some tests,” Lee said. “The doctors said she suffers from auditory neuropathy — and so she wears two hearing aids and attends speech therapy. We’re hoping that won’t be a long-term thing. She’s doing incredibly well with the therapy.
“I just thank God every day for her. She’s my miracle baby and she’s my blessing. I am so grateful to the March of Dimes for saving babies like mine.”
The Thomasville area March of Dimes walk is set for April 8, rain or shine.
“Babies are born prematurely, rain or shine,” said March of Dimes executive director Judy Roderick. “That means we walk, rain or shine.”
Last year, Roderick said, the Thomasville area campaign raised $30,000. She thanked the city school system, calling it “the most involved school system in the entire Triad area.”
In addition to Thomasville City Schools team captains, officials from the State Employee’s Credit Union, Britthaven of Davidson, Fair Grove Elementary School, and the City of Thomasville attended Wednesday’s kickoff breakfast.
According to www.walkamerica.org, premature birth is the leading cause of newborn death. Every year, half a million babies are born too soon. Some die while others face serious health problems like cerebral palsy, blindness and mental retardation.
(Feb. 16)