Maria Ottoman Silas of San Francisco was a little over 6 months pregnant when she thought she was just having bad heart burn. But she decided to check her blood pressure anyway.
“The reading on this machine I bought at the drug store was really high,” said Ottoman Silas, 36. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this thing must be broken.’ I wanted to be safe, so decided to go in and get checked out.”
She and her husband, Dwayne Silas, went directly to the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center.
“We figured they would just give me some medicine and send me home,” Ottoman Silas recalled. “But then they told me I would have to deliver the baby. That’s when everything froze. It all happened so quickly.”
Forty-eight hours later, with a diagnosis of preeclampsia that could have endangered the lives of both mom and baby, Ottoman Silas delivered 14-ounce Nyla Silas via cesarean section, about 3 months early.
Dwayne Silas said neither of them had time to process the birth of such a small child.
“After she was delivered, I took a picture of her and showed it to Maria, and she just broke down,” he said. “With all the IVs and the tubes going down her mouth you could barely see her.”
Seven months later with round-the-clock, one-to-one nursing care and tons of love, Nyla recently went home at 15 pounds. Ottoman Silas said the night before her C-section, she and her husband settled on the name Nyla, which means champion in Arabic. It’s a name she most definitely has lived up to, she added.
“We didn’t know if she would survive when she was born,” said Karen Bockli, MD, neonatal medical director at the hospital. “But because of the love and care of the nursing staff, social workers, respiratory therapists, and physicians, she went home and will thrive.”
Baby Nyla, at 25 weeks and weighing less than a pound, is one of the smallest babies Dr. Bockli and many of the staff have cared for. Babies born before 28 weeks are considered extremely premature. Those born between 22 and 28 weeks have a 78% survival rate.
Because she was so small, the breathing tube and IVs were difficult to manage, said Dr. Bockli. Nyla’s lungs were not developed enough for her to breathe on her own. She developed pneumonia at one point, and then she needed surgery to repair a hole in her tiny heart.
“I just want to emphasize how amazing our whole intensive care team was,” said Ottoman Silas. “We got to know them as people and caregivers. It just blows me away that this is their job, and they have so much passion for saving these babies.”
During her stay, nurses took pictures and made footprints and handprints to document her growth. The wall behind her incubator was plastered with mementos of her progress.
Elvia Benitez, RN, became one of Nyla’s primary nurses shortly after she was delivered. She has a passion for preemies because two of her children were born early.
“When she first delivered, I told the parents, ‘Ask as many questions as you want, and you can call the unit any time,’” said Benitez. “For the parents of these babies, it’s important to take it one day at a time. It can be an emotional roller coaster not only for the parents, but also for the nurses. Caring for Nyla and seeing her grow has truly been inspiring and uplifting, and now it makes me so happy to know she’s now home.”
With the goal posts for going home moved farther away based on each medical setback, Nyla finally went home at the end of April.
The couple, while overwhelmed with joy, are still in shock and processing what happened since they went to the hospital in September.
“This whole journey from the very beginning is probably the most traumatic thing we’ve ever gone through,” said Ottoman Silas. “But we couldn’t have survived without the nurses and the staff. They are so passionate about taking care of babies like ours. They literally held our hands for 7 months.”
