CityView Magazine

12 November 2020 FAMILY MATTERS Big Love for Tiny Babies By Claire Mullen N ovember. A month on the American holiday calendar that offers each of us the opportunity to spend the weeks leading up to anksgiving reflecting on what we are all generally most grateful for. For some families, November also heralds in an annual observance more specific in nature: Prematurity Awareness Month, with World Prematurity Day falling on November 17 each year. For one Fayetteville physician, prematurity awareness has come to impact just about every aspect of her life. She champions this special cause both at home and work and shares her family's story in the hope that it will offer comfort to those going through a similar experience. She also hopes to inspire others to join in the effort. Kristen Coggin entered medical school at East Carolina's Brody School of Medicine in 2001 knowing that she wanted to work with babies. In fact, the Rocky Mount native says that as far back as she can remember, she only ever wanted to be a doctor, specifically one who cared for children. As Kristen moved through her fourth-year rotations, she spent a month in the neonatal intensive care unit and knew that that's where she wanted to stay. She went on to complete a pediatric residency at UNC, followed by a three-year neonatology fellowship at Wake Forest University's Brenner Children's Hospital. In 2012, the young physician, fresh out of fellowship, accepted a position with Cape Fear Neonatology and settled, along with her husband, Myers, and their 3-month-old- daughter, here in Fayetteville. She went right to work caring for Cape Fear Valley Medical Center's tiniest patients. What Dr. Coggin did not know when she began to practice her lifelong calling was that something would come to happen in her own life that would take her commitment to premature babies from professional to deeply personal. In October of 2014, Kristen's younger sister, Lauren McGee, was pregnant with her first child when she went into preterm labor at only 24 weeks. She was admitted to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville and subsequently transferred to UNC for high-risk obstetric management. Kristen suddenly found herself pulling double duty as concerned sister and knowledgeable medical specialist. She was present during the prenatal consult with the McGees' neonatologist, and was there in Chapel Hill one week later, on Oct. 24, 2014, when Lauren and Trent McGee's first baby girl was born at just 25 weeks' gestation. e following day, during her on-call shi in the NICU at Cape Fear Valley, Kristen received a call from the UNC neonatologist to let her know that serious complications had arisen for her tiny newborn niece. She finished her morning rounds and went to be with her family. Kristen was there when, at just 30 hours old, 1 pound 15 ounce Adelyn Jane McGee gained her wings. While a glass-half-empty-inclined person might have difficulty seeing past the tragic irony of her family's loss given Kristen's profession, this faithful and resilient physician is able to recognize the ways in which Adelyn's death, although profoundly heartbreaking, has, as she puts it, "made me a better neonatologist and person in general." She says that her own personal experience allows her to tell families facing the loss of their babies that "there is life on the other side of infant death. I've seen my own sister and brother-in-law survive and even thrive, in the wake of losing Adelyn". ese days, Lauren and Trent McGee are the proud parents of healthy 4-year and 18-month- old little girls who were both full-term births. Along with their extended family and a lot of supportive friends, they've spent the years since they lost Adelyn honoring her. In 2015, they formed "Team Adelyn's Hope" to raise money and awareness through the March of Dimes' annual March for Babies walkathon event. Le to right: Merritt, Kristen, Elliott, Myers and Sullivan Coggin. Photo courtesy of Carol Hedspeth.

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