Nyla Brooke Haywood was born in November in New Lenox, Illinois. She was tiny. Tinier than other babies. She weighed just a little more than one pound! Picking up this bitty new human was like picking up a can of beans or a loaf of bread.

A team of up to 15 people cared for Nyla in her first minutes and days. Her lungs were small and underdeveloped. Nyla had to stay at the hospital for six months while she grew. Now her mom and dad finally get to take her home.

Babies born early are called preemies (for “premature”). But Nyla is called a “micropreemie” because she was extra early and extra small. Normally, a pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. But Nyla’s mom, NaKeya Haywood, was pregnant for only 22 weeks before Nyla was born.

Nyla left the hospital Monday weighing a healthy 10 pounds. At birth, she was 11 inches long. Now she’s 21 inches long.

“I don’t have the words, in all honestly. I’m just grateful that she’s here, she’s healthy, and she’s doing amazing,” Mrs. Haywood told WLS-TV.

Dr. Mario Sanchez says Nyla “came out fighting.” Dr. Sanchez is a neonatologist—a doctor who cares for newborns. “She cried at birth. It was a little whimper, but it was a cry. Her heart rate always remained over 100, which for us is where we wanted it to be,” he says.

Nyla’s story is just one small piece of bigger good news. Doctors work hard. Treatments get better. More and more micropreemies’ lives are being saved.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. — Psalm 139:13