Every now and then, Lea Shaver goes through the possible warning signs she may have missed before she unexpectedly went into labor at 23 weeks, searching for a glimmer, a hint, anything that may explain what went wrong.
And every time, she finds nothing, and ends up back where she started—wondering what happened and why.
At 26, Lea got pregnant. As a runner and someone who watched what she ate, she was healthy. As the child of a woman who never had any preterm births, she had no genetic risk factor she could pinpoint. On paper, she was the poster child of a textbook healthy pregnancy.
But as she approached her 23rd week, her normal, uneventful pregnancy suddenly looked very different.
After her 20 week scan, which went smoothly, she began having what she now realizes were uterine contractions at 22 ½ weeks. She shrugged them off until they, along with some lower back pain, became more bothersome around 23 weeks. That day, on October 31, 2022, during an emergency appointment with her doctor, she was shocked to hear she was in labor.
She was rushed to a hospital that could accommodate a very early delivery as well as an extended NICU stay and give medications that would both delay birth and prepare for the inevitability.
Over the next several days, she was wheeled back and forth between the labor and delivery ward and a less emergent ward. Time stood still. She stayed sane by journaling on her phone, which holds memories she can’t stand to read even today.
“I can't read the notes I wrote because they still make me cry,” Lea said recently. “I thought my baby was going to die.”
“I knew her odds were so low going into the hospital; even if she was born and survived, the chances of her having a lifelong disability were so significant that I didn’t know what her quality of life would be.”
After one of the most difficult and heart wrenching discussions of their lives about whether to resuscitate their baby at birth, Lea and her husband, an active duty military member, decided to resuscitate. And then they waited some more.
On November 9, 2022, nine days after she was admitted to the hospital, Lea gave birth at 24 weeks and two days to Elodie Shaver via Cesarean section. She weighed 1 pound, 7.5 ounces.
And then, almost unexpectedly, things got better.
Though her risk for a brain bleed was high due to the fragility of the underdeveloped blood vessels in her brain, Elodie didn’t suffer from one.
While her lungs were underdeveloped and she spent her first 30 days on a ventilator, her lungs matured well.
On March 12, 2023, after 123 days in the NICU, Elodie went home with only two lingering complications: chronic lung issues and eye problems stemming from her retinopathy of prematurity diagnosis at birth.
“So she may need glasses one day,” Lea said, happily. “It’s an absolute miracle; she beat every single obstacle thrown at her before, during, and after birth. And she’s also the happiest little girl.”
Lea is brimming with joy. She’s now a mom of a baby girl. A baby girl who goes to baseball stadiums, covers herself with a rainbow of color in a ball pit, poses in front of a family Christmas tree, smooshes macaroni all over her mouth in her highchair, and delights at the snow.
She’s a mom who fought hard to be here, and now wants to give back so others can have the same support she did—and more.
“The reason I made it through this is because I heard other peoples’ stories,” Lea said. “But there were not many success stories, and it took a lot of digging to find hope. Knowing others had been through what we were going through helped us through this—as well as hope that one day, answers about the mysteries of preterm birth will come.”
It was the good experience with March of Dimes' NICU Family Support team following Elodie’s discharge that led Lea to the organization’s fight against preterm birth. Almost immediately, she decided to get involved.
Now, much of her free time is spent on fundraising, advocating, and raising awareness about the scientific research happening at the organization.
“I know it’s just a matter of time before March of Dimes scientists uncover the causes of preterm birth, both early preterm birth like mine and later term preterm birth, around which there are even more questions.”
Though the cause of Elodie’s preterm birth remains unknown, Lea is confident that if the types of therapeutics and diagnostics March of Dimes researchers are currently working on had been available to her in early pregnancy, she would’ve had more answers—and maybe even a longer-term pregnancy.
“I’ve been following the microbiome research coming out of the Prematurity Research Center (PRC) at Imperial College London, and I’m fascinated,” Lea said. “To be able to one day soon test the bacteria inside the vagina to flag inflammation and risk for preterm birth is really exciting; I think this type of breakthrough would help so many women.”
“I also love the big data analysis on preterm birth risk prediction coming out of the California PRCs. There is so much to look forward to.”
These PRC successes energize Lea to keep on giving.
Last April, she and her fundraised for their local March for Babies event. Last November, they served as the 2023 Ambassador Family for March of Dimes’ Heroines of Washington Awards Gala, helping raise $510,000.
In March, Lea participated in the March for Change Federal Advocacy Summit, advocating for stronger legislation to increase access to quality health care for women, support healthy women and babies, and improve research and surveillance in the areas of preterm birth and maternal and infant health risks and death.
“We got so lucky,” Lea said. “Not only because Elodie beat the odds, but because we live in a place with good health care and are in a position to use it.”
“I want the same opportunities for every single mom and baby in America, and I think with the work of March of Dimes, we can get there. I know we can.”