One of the smallest surviving babies born in North Carolina went home with her family Tuesday.
E'Layah Pegues was delivered via C-section in September at 24-weeks.
She was just 10 ounces or the weight of two baseballs and just under 10 inches, around the size of soda can.
At first, doctors at Carolinas Medical Center's Levine's Children's Hospital didn't think she would survive.
E'Layah was one of the smallest babies they had ever delivered.
"She was a miracle just in the fact that she was able to make it out of the delivery room and survive the first couple of weeks," Dr. Jennifer Clark-Pounder said.
Doctors and nurses had to help E'Layah breathe, control her body temperature and monitor her nutrition intake.
"We have special premature formula that we use for all of our babies," Clark-Pounder said. "We gave E'layah even more calories with every ounce of formula than other babies."
Week after week, E'Layah started to gain weight and get stronger.
She now weighs 5 pounds 8 ounces, more than nine times her birth weight.
"(There are) a lot of babies at that size (that) we can't even get them out of the delivery room, but she was incredibly vigorous and active," Dr. Andrew Herman, a neonatologist and Interim Chief Medical Officer at Levine Children's Hospital told People. "She was teeny tiny. Looking at her size, we realized it would be an incredibly difficult challenge to keep her alive and to get her to thrive and grow."
Herman said that E'Layah still has challenges ahead, with cerebral palsy and learning disabilites being an issue, but she has beat the odds so far.
Throughout her hospital stay, E'Layah's mother Megan Smith has not left her side.
Each time her daughter's discharge date would get pushed back, Smith said she would get discouraged.
"It's frustrating because you get hope and you think finally my baby is coming home," Smith said.
Now that E'Layah is home with parents, Smith and Smith's fiancé, Eric Pegues, Smith seeing her daughter's personality.
"She's adapting pretty well, she's looking around trying to figure out her surroundings. She's very alert."
Doctors at CMC said E'Layah's progress is nothing short of a miracle.
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