BUFFALO, N.Y. — A couple from Flint, Michigan finally left Buffalo on Monday morning with their healthy baby son, who was born 9 weeks premature during the recent Christmas blizzard.
Tiffany Garvey and Chris Porter came to Hamburg to visit Porter's mother for Christmas, at a time when Garvey was pregnant with the baby they expected to be born in late February.
During that visit, something occurred which (due to privacy laws) hospital officials can't elaborate on, other than to say it was concerning enough for Tiffany to seek medical attention.
The couple tried to drive to the hospital but were quickly turned back by the blizzard which struck Western New York. They called 911 and eventually an ambulance was able to make the trip through the storm to Mercy Hospital in South Buffalo.
"They really wanted to look out for us even when we weren't technically patients here," said Porter.
After being attended to, it was determined that Tiffany could be discharged according to Dr. Michael Zang, a pediatrician with Catholic Health, which operates the hospital.
However, with the blizzard still raging, the couple wasn't going anywhere.
"So we ended up in a room for a couple of days," Garvey recalled.
The couple spent Christmas at the hospital and hoped to return to Hamburg on Monday, and eventually back to Michigan.
"We were expecting that they would have gone home to Michigan hopefully after time with her family and deliver there at term," said Dr. Zang.
However, the baby had other ideas and Tiffany found herself in pre-term labor.
The couple's son Dominic was then born 9 weeks premature, weighing only 3 and a half pounds, and tended to by staff at the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.
"When they are that young we usually refer them to Oishei (Children's Hospital)," said Dr. Zang. "In this case, we delivered and stabilized the baby but due to the blizzard we weren't able to make that transfer."
As things turned out, however, Dominic continued to progress and was fine just where he was.
"The baby was doing well here in our NICU, the parents were established here, and our providers and all parties agreed this would be a great place for this baby to grow up and ultimately be discharged from." Dr. Zang said.
Six weeks after arriving at a place where they never intended to be in the first place, the couple, and their son, finally left for home this morning.