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long journey home
Baby Zoe Ireland Drake has made it home to the US after successful crowdfunding campaign
Zoe Ireland was born in Dublin after her US bound flight was diverted here when her mother’s waters broke prematurely
ZOE IRELAND DRAKE, the baby born in Ireland prematurely when her US-bound flight was diverted to Dublin, has arrived safely home in Tennessee.
Baby Zoe’s mother Jenny’s waters broke suddenly on an American Airlines flight from Scotland when she was just 25 weeks pregnant.
Zoe, whose middle name was changed from Elizabeth to Ireland after the country of her birth, was subsequently delivered in the Rotunda Hospital weighing just short of two pounds.
The Drake family had been stranded here as due to the premature nature of Zoe’s birth it was not safe for her to travel on a commercial flight for an extended period of time.
A crowdfunding campaign was subsequently launched in order to fund the cost of the $67,000 (€62,000) medical flight required.
The family were still €30,000 short of their target last week when an anonymous donor stepped in to pay the remainder.
“Now that we are kind of to the end of it, we can call it what it really is, which is a blessing. It’s been a crazy, traumatic, wild blessing, but it has been a blessing,” a relieved Jenny told WKRN TV in Nashville.
Zoe and family are now being cared for at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in the city, as doctors make the final checks to be certain she is healthy enough to return home.
Last week Jenny said she was left “speechless” by the anonymous donation that secured her baby’s passage home.
“For such a small country you have such a big heart,” she said.
Everyone we have met has opened their arms or house to us. You guys a have a lot to be proud of.
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