By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - Staff Writer - mtrax@starbeacon.com
GENEVA — A soft tinkling voice, babbling and cooing with delight, is the soundtrack of Angie Myers’ life.
Myers, who spends her days juggling cleaning dishes, answering the telephone and fixing snacks for her three children while multitasking other chores, has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Day as she reflects on a year of trials and troubles, triumphs and joys.
After two miscarriages and years of fertility treatments and undiagnosed infertility, Angie and her husband, Chad Myers, decided to give up “trying” and adopted 7-week-old infant Charlie two years ago.
“Then, sort of suddenly, I got pregnant,” Myers said. “Everything was going well
(with the pregnancy), and at 22 weeks pregnant, I got a clean bill of health.”
But life wouldn’t stay calm for the Myers family. Just 10 days after her happy prenatal checkup, Myers came down with a headache, which turned into a seizure and pre-eclampsia. She was taken by medical helicopter to the Cleveland Metro Health Medical Center, where she was given grave news.
“They gave my baby a one-in-three chance of survival,” Myers said. “The doctors said our best chance to have another baby would be to have a stillbirth. We were devastated.”
The couple opted for a Caesarean section delivery, and doctors were astounded to see that the baby, named Isabella Michaela Myers, was 14 ounces, just big enough to accept a breathing tube, allowing her to survive outside her mother’s womb.
“She came out breathing,” Myers said. “She gave just one little squeak.”
Isabella was given a ‘one’ as an Apgar score, which is the standard medical way of evaluating a newborn just after birth. One is the lowest score for a living baby.
Isabella was hospitalized for four months and four days, Myers said, and came home three days after her original due date.
Just as the Myers family was preparing for Isabella’s homecoming, the family welcomed another happy addition. Charlie’s birth mother had delivered Charlie’s sister Tahkyah, and Chad and Angie decided to try to keep the siblings together. They serve as Tahkyah’s foster parents and are now in the process of adopting her.
Myers said Isabella, who is now 14 months old, was 13 pounds on her first birthday and is still small for her age but is very sweet and loves to cuddle.
“She is the answer to all of our prayers,” Myers said. “I am so thankful. Isabella is a little miracle, but so are Charlie and Tahkyah. We are so lucky to have all three of them. This has been a year of thankfulness. This has been a year of miracles.”
