'Tiny miracle' baby heads home from Long Island hospital with special graduation ceremony
MINEOLA, Long Island (WABC) -- They celebrated what doctors at NYU Langone Hospital - Long Island are calling a tiny miracle Wednesday: Little Shyne Graham finally got to go home.
Shyne was born six months ago. She was 24 weeks and three days premature and weighed just one pound, 11 ounces.
She had to breathe through a tube and suffered three infections, including E. coli and strep throat.
But now, after 147 days, Shyne is fully healed and ready to leave the NYU Langone - Long Island neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and head home for good.
Shyne and her family live in Baldwin, Nassau County.
"Shyne now weighs almost 10 pounds and is a chubby baby," her mom Phaebe Turner said before the big homecoming day. "God had given us a blessing. Shyne is fine."
NICU nurse manager Lashon Pitter even staged a graduation -- complete with caps and gowns -- to celebrate Shyne's departure into the world.
It's a true testament to modern medicine and the perseverance of a tiny baby and a mom who never gave up.
"Just to see those babies that start off like as small as your hand and now are normal size babies...it's amazing," Pitter said.
Turner said she was warned about what could happen, and to see her now today is a miracle.
"She was intubated for months, I didn't get to hold her for almost two months, and to see her now blossoming and being big enough to finally come home and be with her family, it's truly a blessing," Turner said.
For Turner, the milestone was bittersweet, because she lost her first child to a miscarriage on Mother's Day in 2022.
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