Mum reveals how baby size of a Coke can survived against all odds

A Queensland woman who gave birth to a baby at 23 weeks was told her son would not survive his first 48 hours, but he defied all expectations and fought on.

Now 21 months old, Lia Calzuola’s son Luca has made an incredible recovery after his premature birth, at which time he weighed in at a tiny 416 grams.

Doctors warned the 34-year-old mother that her newborn baby, who was about the size of a can of Coke, would likely suffer bleeding on the brain and they should think about funeral preparations.

At 22, Ms Calzuola had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, losing her left ovary and right fallopian tube, and it seemed unlikely she would ever have children.

Incredibly, she fell pregnant after her first IVF treatment, and she and Jay, her partner of six years, were ecstatic.

“It was pretty amazing because I was told not to get my hopes up,” Ms Calzuola said.

“There was never anything to say I couldn’t have a baby though. I just wouldn’t be able to conceive a child the conventional way.”

But the pregnancy was complicated from the start, with severe morning sickness and heavy bleeding causing her to stop work at 16 weeks.

At the 22-week mark, Ms Calzuola was raced to hospital and given a dire prognosis.

If she didn’t deliver her baby within the next week, chances were they’d both die because the placenta was infected.

After an excruciating five-day labour with no pain relief, little Luca was born and immediately placed into intensive care.

His tiny lungs were underdeveloped, he was suffering breathing problems and because he had been born so early one of his heart valves was still open.

Luca needed a series of surgeries and his mum wasn’t able to hold her son until he was six weeks old.

“The first 48 hours were pretty hellish,” Ms Calzuola said.

“We’d put ourselves in a mindset that ‘yes he’s here, and yes we love him’, but couldn’t get our hopes up and we didn’t want to get too attached.

“He was very small and the odds were against him statistically. There were a lot of issues going against us.”

But from that point onwards, things slowly began to get better.

At 21 months, he is still small for his age and continues to have respiratory problems, but Lia said he was doing well.

“With a lot of things he is a bit developmentally delayed, which is a given, but he’s quite smart and he knows how everything works,” Ms Calzuola said.

But Ms Calzuola is just grateful that he is alive and growing, describing her boy as “amazing”, headstrong and determined.

“He’s a little terror, a typical toddler, into everything,” she laughs.

“But to us he’s just fantastic. He’s incredibly cheeky, he has the biggest personality and he’s always smiling, always happy.”