POLK COUNTY, Fla. — Thousands of people in the Bay Area and around the world are rooting for a prematurely born baby nicknamed “Fighting Finn.”
- Premature newborn fighting for his life in hospital
- Finn Hill was born at 24 weeks, underwent surgery last week
- Finn's conception, birth are miracles of modern medicine
Finn Hill has been fighting for his life since being born two months ago at only 24 weeks.
Finn was born at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center and transferred to Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando a week later.
Spectrum Bay News 9 visited Finn and his parents, Jessica and Christopher, at the hospital.
“You’re doing so good (and) overcome a lot of odds, kiddo,” Jessica Hill said as Finn gripped her finger with his little hand.
Finn is still on a respirator in an incubator and underwent surgery last week to close a tiny hole in his heart.
He is getting stronger every day, and the nurses and his parents believe he gets stronger when he hears his parents’ voices and feels their touch.
“You can tell by the heartbeat and all that kind of stuff (that) he seems to relax when Mom and Dad come around,” Christopher Hill said. “When the nurses come around, he gets upset, because he thinks he’s going to be poked and prodded.”
How far Finn has come — and how he ever came to be — is a miracle of modern medicine.
The Hills were not able to conceive on their own, so they adopted embryos left over from another couple’s in vitro fertilization efforts. That couple from another state put the Hills through a screening process to make sure they would be good parents.
“We talked for... at least eight or nine months, video chatting, getting to know each other, asking each other questions,” Jessica Hill said.
One of the embryos was implanted last September, but it didn’t survive. A second embryo implanted last year resulted in Finn. The couple actually has pictures of both embryos before they were implanted.
The Hills have become very close with the other couple. They went to a theme park together while Jessica Hill was pregnant, and Jessica talks with the other mom almost every day.
“They have given us the gift of life,” Christopher Hill said. “That’s the biggest thing you can give someone is the gift of life.”
Thousands of people have been following Finn’s progress on the “Fighting Finn” Facebook page, and the couple really appreciates all of the concern and prayers.
“You don’t realize how many people care about you until something like this happens,” he said.
Finn’s doctor said he will probably have to stay at Nemours until at least September. The Hills said they plan to have more children with some of the remaining embryos donated by the other couple. Those embryos are being cryogenically stored at an Orlando fertility clinic.