Colin Kernaghan looked quite serious under the Sunday afternoon sun at Lone Lane Park, but finally broke a smile when someone took the green plastic ring from his hand and pretended to eat it like a donut.
That’s comedy gold for a 1-year-old. The smile was especially gratifying given that a year ago, Colin was in the neonatal intensive care unit at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital on the health network’s campus in Salisbury Township.
He was 2 months premature, weighing just 4 pounds when he was delivered by caesarean section, and needed to stretch his underdeveloped lungs for a time before he could go home.
“Those 48 days were super long,” said his mother, Maura Kernaghan of Perkiomenville, recounting the weeks in the NICU when Colin progressed well with his breathing but was sluggish about eating.
Now, at the 13th reunion of NICU patients, parents and nurses at the park in Upper Macungie Township, Colin was fresh-faced and at ease in the arms of his other mother, Jamie Kernaghan.
He sported a Saquon Barkley jersey that drew admiring comments from a passerby. Never too early to make an Eagles fan, it seems.
“He’s meeting all his milestones,” said Jamie, who naturally was rattled by her spouse’s pregnancy complication — preeclampsia, which can cause dangerously high blood pressure in the mother and force early delivery.
Doctors sent Maura to the maternity unit in hopes to getting her to the 34th week of pregnancy, three weeks away.
“I made it three days,” she said.
One reason why Colin did so well, the Kernaghans said — indeed, why all the children at the park did so well — was the NICU nursing staff, three members of which attended Colin’s first birthday party last week.
Party invitations aren’t unusual, said one of those attendees, Becky Salter of Catasauqua. She’s worked in the NICU for 17 years and has socialized with plenty of former patients and their families.
“Birthday parties, dance recitals, nursery school graduations,” she said. “It’s cool to keep in contact.”
Dozens of people turned out at the reunion, where children were set loose on a host of activities and parents reconnected and reminisced with staff. The gatherings began in 2010 and have been held every year except 2020 and ’21 because of the pandemic.
Brandon Jones and Melanie Kopinetz of Lansford were there with their daughter Arabella, 20 months, and her younger brother Jasper, 10 months.
Jasper was a full-term baby, a robust 8 pounds, 3 ounces. Arabella was 6 weeks premature and weighed a little more than 4 pounds. She spent 28 days in the NICU before coming home, only to end up back in the hospital three weeks later, after her parents noticed a problem.
“She was breathing heavy and aspirating when she drank her formula,” Jones recalled.
A doctor diagnosed a condition called laryngomalacia that causes the soft tissues in the throat to collapse. It’s not uncommon is premature babies. They can grow out of it, but Arabella’s case was serious enough to warrant an operation.
“She was hardly past her original due date and she’s having surgery,” Jones said.
Arabella recovered in a few weeks.
“She was really resilient,” Kopinetz said. “She’s hit all her milestones on time. It’s really amazing.”
The 42-bed Lehigh Valley NICU is a Level IV unit, the highest tier, meaning it handles premature babies as well as newborns with serious illnesses.
Nurse Jillian Intelisano, a 16-year NICU employee from North Whitehall Township, said the unit performs everything but cardiac surgery. Stays can range from a few weeks to many months, she said. That’s why the nurses develop such lasting relationships with families.
“We see them through some very scary times,” said Intelisano, who was invited to Colin Kernaghan’s birthday party but couldn’t attend.
Maybe next year, when the little Eagles fan turns 2.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com.
