Alicia Zarate knew something was wrong during her pregnancy when her husband, Jonathan, played the rock band Creed’s song “Higher” and her unborn son did not respond by moving in her womb.
“On the way to work I would always listen to it,” Alicia Zarate said. “He would wake up and start fluttering in my stomach. I noticed I did not feel movement as much. I told him (Jonathan) to play the song: ‘If there’s not fluttering, we’re going to the doctor.’ There wasn’t, so we went to the doctor, and the next day he was delivered.”
Nathan Zarate, who was born last Nov. 21 after just 25 weeks in the womb, finally went home Wednesday after nine months in the neonatal intensive care unit at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge.
Nathan weighed less than 1 pound at birth — 14.3 ounces, to be exact. Born two days before Thanksgiving, he spent his first Christmas, Easter and Fourth of July in the hospital.
Surrounded by TV cameras and other media Wednesday, Alicia and Jonathan Zarate rolled him out of the NICU as two dozen hospital staff members serenaded him.
“It’s amazing,” Alicia Zarate said. “I never thought I would see the day. It’s been a long journey with lots of ups and downs. We made it.”
“We tried to give him as much love and support as we could,” Jonathan Zarate said. “It was definitely a difficult journey to go through.”
Alicia said she was “scared, terrified” when the doctors informed her Nathan had to be delivered early.
“Even though I wasn’t ready, I had to trust in God’s plan and the doctors and stay positive,” she said.
Jonathan said that Nathan, at birth, was “about the size of a Coke can.”
“He was just the size of my hand,” he said. “It was unreal. He’s gone from 14 ounces to 14 pounds.”
For her part, Alicia thought his head looked like a kiwi fruit because of its tiny size.
Dr. Michael Cappello, neonatologist and vice chairman of pediatrics at the hospital, said babies like Nathan are “the reason we go into this field.”
“It’s very heartwarming and satisfying,” Cappello said. “Nathan was extremely premature. He needed a lot of support and was a really sick guy in the beginning. He did great. He’s now thriving, smiling, laughing. We’re all very proud of what we’ve done, but especially proud of him.”
Nathan had surgery to repair a heart defect, battled pneumonia and eye damage, and had a tracheostomy tube inserted to help him breathe, officials said.
The Zarates, who live in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, spent a month preparing for Nathan’s arrival home, including installing the necessary electrical system to accommodate the tracheostomy until he breathes completely on his own, Alicia Zarate explained.
“There were times when we called him ‘the grumpy old man,’ but once he was trached, he’s been as happy as can be. He’s able to develop as normal as can be,” she said. “He’s been feisty since day one. He lets us know when he’s not having it. Overall, he’s been content.”
“He’s a fighter,” Jonathan said.
The family chose Nathan as his name because it means a “gift from God,” Alicia Zarate said. His bravery and resilience earned him the nickname “Nate the Great,” she added, and the hospital staff dubbed him the “mayor of NICU.”
In March, at about the time he was originally due to be born, the Zarates finally realized Nate was going to be OK.
“It took a while,” Jonathan Zarate said. “There were a lot of scary nights.”
The hospital staff “went above and beyond from day one,” Alicia Zarate said.
“They were checking not only on Nathan but on us,” she said. “It got really difficult. Having them there was amazing.”
The Zarates will receive home care assistance for an allotted amount of time each day, Alicia said. “There’s still a road ahead,” she said. “It will get better now.”
During Nathan’s hospital stay, Alicia, who works as a teacher, was able to take her maternity leave, she said. She was recently able to extend it for “child-rearing years.”
Currently, Nathan breathes “mostly on his own,” Cappello said. “He will go to a follow-up clinic. He’s doing so well overall. Hopefully, he will continue on that trajectory and develop fully as a healthy child.”
At about 405 grams, Nathan was born smaller than the typical lowest weight of 500 grams in the NICU, but he was not the smallest or earliest ever in the 54-bed unit, Cappello said.
“We’ve had smaller and younger,” he said. “We tell parents there is always hope. You always want to continue moving forward.”
