THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994 TAG: 9406010464
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940601 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
She flipped through a book of animal noises, shrieking at each bark and oink before moving to a tricycle, her green blanket in one hand, her thumb wedged into her mouth.
{REST} It was hard to believe this toddler once weighed slightly more than a pint of milk.
Hard to believe she was given less than a 10 percent chance to live when she was born May 30, 1992.
``She's an amazing little girl,'' said her doctor, Lt. Joel Temple, a pediatrician at Portsmouth Naval Hospital.
``Every step of the way, she kept amazing us.''
Even when the steps were small ones - an eye that opened two weeks after birth, a faint cry that sounded more like a kitten.
Born four months early on the floor of her mother's bathroom, Heather was one of the smallest infants ever to survive in Hampton Roads.
She was a miracle in a world defined by science, born too early and yet escaping the long-term ailments associated with severe premature birth, like blindness.
``I always knew she would make it,'' said her mother, Diane Jividen, from her family's Virginia Beach apartment. ``I told her doctors she was going to be the textbook case. She was going to survive. We were going to take her home.''
There was a time, though, when Jividen wasn't so sure.
Six months pregnant and lying on the bathroom floor, she told a 911 dispatcher she thought she was having a miscarriage.
When the dispatcher told her she was having the baby, Jividen screamed it was much too soon.
Moments later, Heather was born.
``Everything just happened so fast,'' said Jividen, 31. ``I do remember she was moving and crying. I remember the 911 lady telling me to clean out her mouth.
``I said, `I can't. My fingers are too big.' ''
Paramedics, dispatched to the Jividen home, wrapped Heather in aluminum foil to keep her warm. She was taken to Virginia Beach General Hospital, where she was stabilized and sent to Portsmouth Naval.
Chances were slim she'd live out the day.
Her eyes were fused shut. Her skin was transparent and her lungs were just tiny sacs. Her arm was the size of a pinky.
She stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for 102 days, writhing across a flat bed under heat lamps and plastic wrap to keep her warm. Tubes were stuck in her chest and bellybutton, pumping the fluids and antibiotics that would stave off infection and help her body grow. She was strapped to a ventilator that taught her how to breathe.
Two days after she arrived, she was baptized by a Navy chaplain, just in case.
Two weeks later, she opened her left eye.
On July 4th weekend, her father, Scott Jividen, a Navy avionics technician, held her for the first time.
``She had strong support from her parents and she got good care,'' said Temple, who has monitored Heather for the last two years. ``She was a fighter.''
On Sept. 10, 1992, Heather was discharged from the hospital, weighing just 4 1/2 pounds and facing an uncertain future.
Measured against normal standards, she is still small, weighing less than 18 pounds. Her vocabulary is underdeveloped for a child her age, but she's catching up.
A year ago, she said ``momma'' for the first time. Last Christmas, she took her first steps.
This time, standing up.
by CNB