FORT WORTH, Texas — Annie Babock was in trouble. The baby she was carrying had been diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction and Annie, her pregnancy at just 24 weeks gestation, diagnosed with preeclampsia and placental abruption.

Her doctors in Bedford delivered a sentence she will never forget.

“They said we can either deliver here and do comfort care and let the baby pass, or go to Texas Health in Fort Worth and do a trial of life.”

A “trial of life” meant a helicopter ambulance ride to Fort Worth and then an emergency C-section to find out if the baby was healthy enough, and big enough, to survive.

Nora Babcock was born March 10. She weighed 13.1 ounces and was just 10.5 inches long – roughly the size of a soda can. Rushed into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Texas Health Harris Methodist Fort Worth, Nora would need prolonged respiratory assistance and a delicate procedure to repair a heart defect. It would be 10 days before Annie Babcock was able to hold her.

“It was terrifying,” Annie Babcock said.

“It was our first bonding experience but it sure was scary,” she said of holding her tiny daughter while the infant was supported by multiple wires, monitors and tubes.

But that was eight months ago.

“She came home July 10,” Babcock said. “So we’ve been in the NICU more days than we’ve been out of the NICU.”

Nora weighs 10 pounds now and is, according to her doctors, the picture of health.

“It was a huge shock when they said she was going to be born at 24 weeks,” Babcock said. “I had no idea a baby less than a pound could be born and also live. It was terrifying, but also like miraculous.”

“You look at her now, and it’s hard to even think about that,” Owen Babcock said of his daughter’s precarious start at life.

“When she was born so small I didn’t think she could live,” Annie Babcock said. “And the nurses are like, no, she’s going to thrive.”

“A case like Nora is still quite rare mostly because of her size,” said Dr. Megan Schmidt, neonatologist at Pediatrix Neonatology of Texas and Texas Health Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital.

Nora is considered a “micro-preemie” – a baby born before 26 weeks gestation or less than 2.2 pounds.

“You’re really battling against nature,” Schmidt said. “And trying to get this body that is not ready to be in this world and be in the outside world, you’re trying to force it to stay in this outside world and to function. It takes highly highly specialized care to even to be able to have a chance to have these babies survive.”

“These sorts of things and these innovations that have been developed over the last 10-plus years are things that are making big changes for our babies now,” Schmidt said. “We couldn’t have done these things as early as 30 years ago that we can do now. So there is hope.”

“Just the advancements that have been made over the last decade are incredible,” said Owen Babcock.

Owen and Annie Babcock will tell you they have taken a “ridiculous” amount of pictures. They were also allowed to keep Nora’s first blood pressure cuff – barely big enough to fit on an adult finger.

“I think of this little fighter who was ready to come into the world too soon but she was ready to come fighting and she never gave up,” Annie Babcock said while looking at the handprints and footprints the hospital gave them – the footprint barely the size of an adult thumb.

“I will tell her she’s the strongest person I’ve ever met in my whole life,” Annie Babcock said when asked what she will tell her daughter when she is older. “I really hope she’s a neonatologist some day. I’m trying to manifest it.”

There is a photo wall at the Babcock’s dining room that includes the phrase – “I still remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.” After their ordeal, they are truly thankful.

“I can’t thank Dr. Schmidt enough for just believing in her and not like never giving up hope,” Annie Babcock said.

Hope that they want other parents of preemie babies to know is possible for them too.

“What they do as their work,” she added, “it’s amazing.”