On June 7th at 1:22 p.m our small, but mighty girl was here at 27 weeks old! She was born weighing 1 pound 8 ounces and was 12 ¾ inches long. She was doing SO WELL. By the third day of her life, she was being moved from a breathing tube to only having a nasal port. Unfortunately, a PICC line got stuck when they were working to remove it. She ended up being sent by helicopter to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital to have the PICC line removed. By the time we made it to the hospital 2 hours away, the line was removed successfully, and she was stable- yay! We spent another 5 days there before heading back to Mercy in Des Moines to be a little closer to home. She was growing, breathing so well, and was all around a healthy girl who just needed to get bigger. She was now at 2 pounds 8 ounces, and she already looked so much bigger. On July 2nd, I came to the hospital, and the nurse told me they were going to stop food for the day. Margot’s stomach was a little puffy, and she didn’t seem to be tolerating the food super well. They had the GI specialist come and check her over, do an X-ray, and overall, she was stable. By that afternoon, you could tell she was getting worse, and they made the decision to put a port into her abdomen to release some of the air/gas in there. After they did this, they decided she needed to be moved to Blank Children’s Hospital, a few blocks over, as they had an anesthesiologist on staff there for a baby of Margot’s size in case she needed surgery. By the time we all got there, we met with the surgeon on call. He said he wanted to assess her over, and then we would talk about next steps. When he came back, he explained that Margot had developed Necrotizing Enterocolitis. He explained every possible scenario about what could happen next, but he wouldn’t know until he could see her intestine. He needed to open her up and see the status of her intestine, so he did that. After about 30 minutes, he came back to us, and we could tell he didn’t have great news. Unfortunately, her entire intestine was dead, and there wasn’t anything that could be done beyond comfort care. Worst case scenario….our hearts shattered right then and there. We were able to be with Margot, hold her, kiss her, talk to her, and just be a family of 3 for the remainder of the evening. Early in the morning on July 3rd she passed away at only 26 days old. She took her last breath in my arms, and we were with her the whole time until the funeral home came. She was and always will be our strong, spicy girl that had every nurse and person wrapped around her finger.