Robin Cyr visits with her newborn baby girl in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the IWK Health Centre on March 11.
“Everybody asks, is there any health issues?” said mother Robin Cyr, dandling Mireya on her knee outside her Barrington Street home Sunday afternoon. “But knock on wood, she’s doing everything on time. She holds her head up, she turns to your voice, she smiles.”
Mireya was apparently stillborn after a long and difficult delivery at the IWK Health Centre in March – but after 28 minutes without breathing, and after being declared dead, the baby spontaneously began breathing again.
Cyr said doctors at the hospital have never been able to explain the stunning turn of events, but she and her family have all the explanation they need.
“It’s a miracle, and God is doing his work,” said Pearleen Shephard, Cyr’s aunt, who was in the delivery room offering “deep and strong” prayers for the baby’s wellbeing. “The doctors took their hands off her. They called it. She was gone. So she truly, truly is a miracle.”
The baby has progressed well and normally since coming home, adored by her older brother and sister, and doted on by friends and relatives.
“She gets a lot of attention,” said Shephard. “A baby does demand a lot of attention, she’s just getting some extra special attention.”
Mireya’s story attracted attention from far outside of Halifax, making headlines across New York and in Europe. Local churches have reached out to Cyr, asking her to join or come speak to the congregation.
Cyr says she doesn’t want to expose the baby to too much publicity, preferring that her life now progress as normally as possible.
“I’m going to let her take her own path,” she said. “She’s doing everything normal, so I just leave it in the hands of God.”
Although the baby’s story brought Shephard and other family members to tears several times during Sunday’s family gathering, Cyr said in many ways the ordeal of losing and then regaining a baby hasn’t really sunk in yet.
She does say that Mireya’s survival has given her a sense of serenity about the baby’s progress.
“With my other kids, I was a zombie until they were one, I was scared to sleep, always watching over them,” she said. “With her, I shut my eyes in a minute, look gone to sleep. I don’t know, I feel like God’s protecting her. He brought her this far, he’s not going to take her from me now.”
No explanation from IWK for baby’s survival
Officials at the IWK won’t comment publicly on any review or inquiry into the case of the miracle baby.
“We can’t comment on any specific case,” reads a statement emailed from the IWK last week. “However, we do have a process where we review standards and processes so that we can continually improve the care and service we provide to our patients and families.”
Cyr said doctors in the delivery room when Mireya started breathing told her, some through tears, that it was truly a miracle.
She said she’s not angry about the lack of any other accounting for the baby’s survival.
However, she is angry that her request for a caesarean delivery – knowing the baby was unusually large, and would present complications – wasn’t accommodated.
“That makes me very mad, because I personally asked for a c-section when (my doctor) told me about the complications,” said Cyr. “Why even make me go through that?” she said.
Cyr’s relatives said the delivery was torturous, and to this day say the video is “too traumatizing” for Cyr to see.
“It never should have been a natural birth,” said Cyr’s aunt, Pearleen Shephard. “I can assure you…there’s going to be more caesareans. They’re not going to take the chance and let this happen.”
Ruth Davenport Metro Halifax
