Premature baby beats odds

Thursday, January 12th 2006, 12:32 pm

By: News On 6

Doctors call her a miracle, a little Inola girl, born premature with a system full of drugs, to a mother who tried to abort her. She was expected to die. Next week she's turning 3 years old.

News on 6 reporter Heather Lewin talks with the woman who adopted her about the baby's amazing recovery.

â€œShe likes to run through the house and have somebody chase her." Ina Jackson can't imagine her life without Brooklyn, who almost wasn't born at all. When doctors delivered Brooklyn just 25 weeks into her mother's pregnancy, no one expected her to survive. "She weighed a pound, five ounces at birth, was twelve inches long, dropped down to like 13, 14 oz."

Doctors said if she did live, Brooklyn would be severely brain damaged. "She would never walk, never talk, just basically be a vegetable. I went up to that baby's crib, laid my hand on her and said Lord, if it's your will for this baby to live, let her live but if it's not take her while she's young and innocent. And that's a very hard prayer to pray." But somehow, she survived.

Despite the risks, the Jacksonâ€™s took her into their home and their hearts. "This was flesh and blood. This was our son's baby."

Ina had never even heard of a baby that small. In the beginning she had to dress her in doll clothes, and those were still too big. "I see the accomplishments she's made, I see a fighter in her, if she had not fought and fought hard for her life, this baby would not have survived."

Ina says Brooklyn survived for a reason. "If nothing else to tell her story, to get it out to these moms to be, whether they're in their teens or 20's, if you're doing the drugs, stop em, because you don't know what drastic effects it can have on your child."

Despite Brooklyn's beating the odds, she knows most babies born on drugs won't be so lucky. Brooklyn is in still physical therapy for some right side weakness. Her grandmother officially adopted her.

Next week they'll celebrate her birthday with all the people who helped save her life.