Born at 30 Weeks — Early and Unexpected, Yet Thriving Anyway

Even when things are unexpected, they can still work out.

Hope Rai’s story proves it. 

Born weighing just 1.4kg (3.09 pounds) at 30 weeks, if you met Hope today, you’d have no idea she had such a tenuous start.

Jacinta and Amos Rai, from Palmerston North, New Zealand, were living their normal daily routine—caring for their son Luka, working, and with Jacinta in her second trimester of pregnancy with their second child—when their world suddenly changed.

Jacinta’s waters broke at just 30 weeks.

“I was kept in hospital to try and prolong Hope’s time in utero, but after three days I had a bleed and my contractions started… she was coming, ready or not,” Jacinta says.

Jacinta herself had also been born prematurely, surprising her mother with an early arrival at 32 weeks.

“As eager as we were to meet our little girl, we were of course a bit anxious. But we knew that God was in control.”

The medical team found that Hope was breech, so Jacinta was taken for an emergency caesarean.

Hope let out her first cry for both parents to hear, and Amos did the honours of cutting her umbilical cord before she was quickly transported to the NICU. 

“It was definitely hard to have Hope taken without seeing her first. But the team in NICU was amazing and gave her all the support she needed.”

Hope was placed on oxygen and in an incubator. Her lungs weren’t yet fully able to function independently, and she needed a carefully controlled environment as her skin wasn’t ready for life outside the womb.

Hope stayed in NICU for six weeks, but she steadily improved over that time and had no major setbacks.

Gradually, she was taken off support until she was fully stable and able to come home.

And she hasn’t looked back. As Hope grew she went by her "corrected" age for development but she more than made up for it in size, quickly catching up to her actual age. . 

At 12 months she was 11.9kg, and now, at almost 15 months, the same size as—or even bigger than—some children her age, and developmentally about the same

Born at just over 3 pounds in weight, Jacinta describes Hope as a “beautiful miracle”, their “gift from God”. 

“We could see God’s hand in every little detail and we are so grateful to Him for everything.”

Being pro-life, Jacinta says every person is precious, no matter how small. 

“Every single baby, from the moment of conception, is a blessing from God.”