Baby born at 13 oz. gets to go home 5 months later

PARK RIDGE, Ill. (WLS) -- A baby who weighed less than a pound when she was born last year at a northwest suburban hospital is now finally at home.

It's a new birthday of sorts for the Hunter family as 5-month-old Sienna Rose finally gets to go home

She's 7 pounds now and raising her head with ease - like as soon as our camera showed up. She's about the size she would have been had she not arrived 15 weeks ahead of schedule.

In Advocate Lutheran's neonatal ICU, where up to 60 preemies are cared for constantly, Sienna was by any measure exceptionally tiny -- just 394 grams or 13.7 ounces when mother Christine gave birth -- then found herself in the adult ICU.

High-end medical services plus quiet and darkness, the doctors say, helped a lot -- but for the most part it was Sienna's spirit that got her to this point.

Even for the professional medical staff, Sienna was extremely tiny when she arrived on September 1 -- stats show that a baby born at under 400 grams stands a 50-percent chance of survival or less.

The couple have an 8-year-old who cannot wait to actually touch her baby sister. In the meantime, the parents take in last-minute instructions from staff they consider family on how to care for Sienna, whose nasal feeding tube mom and dad will have to use when she needs it periodically.