A tiny life saved to flourish

BY ANN HAUPRICH

In this world of incubators and IVs, it's not unusual for prematurely-born infants to survive in high-tech neonatal units of hospitals when they weigh just a few pounds.

But when parishioners at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Albany heard that an infant who was born on Dec. 15, 1886, weighing just 15 ounces was thriving in the aftermath of a home birth, prayers of Thanksgiving abounded.

At the time, Valentine Joseph Bopp, son of Caroline and Charles, ranked among the world's smallest babies. Throughout his life, doctors hailed his survival as a miracle. I know this because Valentine was my grandfather.

According to the story that has been handed down in our family, Valentine was so tiny that he could wear a lady's delicate handkerchief for a diaper and a woman's wedding band as a bracelet. "He could fit right into the palm of your hand," was the description I heard over and over.

As the story goes, Valentine's mother had given birth to a baby boy around Valentine's Day earlier that same year, but that infant had died shortly after birth. So distraught was the young mother at the thought of burying a second baby, that - despite all odds - she prayed fervently for her premature December baby to live.

To help the Almighty along, Caroline kept tiny Valentine in a warm wicker laundry basket surrounded by jugs filled with hot water - in other words, a makeshift incubator. We're also told that he sometimes rested on a warming tray of the cast iron stove and, as he grew stronger, was bundled up and put outside in the cold air to help his lungs develop.

BY the time Valentine's Day came along two months after his birth, Valentine Joseph Bopp was taken to Our Lady Help of Christians to be baptized.

The only thing that could make such a miracle possible, I heard over and over growing up, was the love of a mother who believed that, through God, all things are possible.

But this is just part of the miracle. Many babies who are born two months premature today must spend two or three months in an intensive care or neonatal unit. Even when they get up to a healthy birth weight of around five or six pounds, doctors often worry about whether or not such babies will be able to lead normal lives.

This is because premature babies who survive birth at 27 weeks or later still face the prospect of severe mental or physical problems later in life. Valentine, on the other hand, grew up to be a quick-witted, strapping firefighter who was almost six feet tall and 175 pounds.

When he married his sweetheart, my grandmother, Cath-erine Tiernan Bopp, a few days after Valentine's Day in 1914, well-wishers tied a message to their vehicle that read: "At Last She Got Her Valentine!"

Their matrimonial union lasted 55 years and produced nine children - some of them now active octogenarians - as well as around 100 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. All are grateful that God answered a young mother's prayers for her tiny infant just over a century ago.

When my own children wonder aloud about how such a miracle could possibly have unfolded, I tell them one can only assume that Valentine had a powerful will to live that matched the magnitude of his mother's love for him and her faith in God.

(Ann Hauprich is a correspondent for The Evangelist.)

(12-03-09)