Grace beats odds to reach her potential

Given just a 3 per cent chance of survival after being born 16 weeks prematurely, Grace Charles has defied the odds and graduated from high school.

Weighing just 585g on November 26, 1997, Grace was so extremely premature her organs could be seen through her skin, her eyes were fused shut, and doctors said she only had a tiny chance of survival.

Last week, she graduated from St Joseph’s College.

Grace’s mother Allyson Charles said her pregnancy with Grace was difficult from the beginning, saying she only found out she was pregnant at 14 weeks and began contraction pains at 24 weeks.

“The contractions stopped and the staff at the Albany Hospital decided to fly me to King Edward Memorial Hospital just in case it happened again but just as I was being prepared to leave Albany Hospital the labour began again so they rushed me out to the airport and the awaiting plane.”

Mrs Charles said it was extremely traumatic, not knowing if her baby was going to live or die.

“Seeing her all wrapped in a special blanket with the tiniest face was so surreal. We didn’t even know if we could name her at first,” she said. “Roland Cohen was her neonatologist and he told us they would not give any predicted outcome until she survived for 72 hours.

“We didn’t know if we could hope at all for a good outcome.”

In the early hours of Grace’s life, she had two small brain hemorrhages and her lungs collapsed five times, meaning she needed chest drains until her lungs healed.

“When she was two months old, we were told to prepare for the 75 per cent chance of Grace having a major disability but we were determined to cope with whatever the outcome,”Mrs Charles said.

Grace spent six months at KEMH. In 2010 she still held the WA record for the earliest “out-born” (babies not born in KEMH) baby to survive.

For the first two years of Grace’s life, her family had to be extremely careful of viruses because she had compromised immunity and she took longer to fulfil usual milestones but with assistance from doctors, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, Grace did crawl and walk and eventually talk but often her brothers spoke for her.

Grace suffered lung problems in her early years and still has asthma. Both her vocal cords are damaged so she does not have a loud voice, which the family have worked to fix without success.

Since then, Grace has come a long way, graduating from high school, and also has a traineeship in Certificate 3 in Education Assistant, working in the pre-primary school at Spencer Park Primary School.

Grace turns 19 on November 26, and on the day the family plan to go back to the hospital so she can see her doctors to say a special “thank you”.