{"id":63929,"date":"2015-05-23T11:03:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T15:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=63929"},"modified":"2015-05-26T20:10:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T00:10:44","slug":"baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Oana and Alex Papaconstatinou were happily awaiting the birth of their second child: a brother for their daughter Emma. But during the pregnancy, Oana had this strange feeling that her baby was in pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember feeling sort of odd one day during my pregnancy; it was less that I was uncomfortable and more that I thought my baby was in pain,\u201d she told the Mirror<\/a>. \u201cIt was a really strange feeling and it unsettled me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At a routine checkup, the baby\u2019s heart rate was higher than usual but the doctor wasn\u2019t concerned. After baby George was born, he seemed healthy, and Oana put her fears aside. However, George\u2019s health started to change.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t eating well. He wasn\u2019t sleeping. He wasn\u2019t thriving. They went from doctor to doctor, but each insisted George was perfectly fine. Still, Oana couldn\u2019t shake the feeling that something was wrong with her baby.<\/p>\n

\"g1\"

Emma and Alex with baby Georgie.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then George started having night sweats and became more and more pale. One day while cutting his nails, Oana nicked his finger and the amount of blood was startling. He continued to decline until he wasn\u2019t able to eat at all. Oana took him to the hospital, telling her family that she wouldn\u2019t be back with him until he was better.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge never got back, he never came home. My mother\u2019s instinct had been right,\u201d said Oana.<\/p>\n

Tests showed that George had acute megakaryoblastic leukemia \u2013 blood cancer \u2013 and had likely had it since conception. He was treated with chemotherapy and started to show improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was giggling and smiling and appeared to be pain-free for the first time,\u201d said Oana. \u201cWe were delighted. We felt he was on the mend.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, within just one day of finishing the course of chemo, the cancer was back. The doctors told Oana and Alex that there was no chance George would survive.<\/p>\n

They family was put in touch with Children\u2019s Hospice, who guided them through taking care of their son in his final days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew George was dying,\u201d said Oana, \u201cBut there was still a tiny hope of a miracle in my heart and no one took that away from me. The thing about the hospice is that it wasn\u2019t scary at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family spent two weeks together. Big sister Emma got to have tons of time playing with George. They went swimming. They took walks. They enjoyed family mealtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd every minute he was teaching us,\u201d Oana said of George. \u201cInstead of thinking that we\u2019d never watch him learn to swim, we thought it was wonderful that he was really enjoying the pool. We never worried that he was leaving us, we were just happy that he was there with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beautiful baby George died on July 5, 2014, just over five\u00a0months after his birth. Oana wants people to learn from George’s short life that “life needs to be lived with intention,” and that’s exactly what she and her husband did with the time they had with their baby boy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oana and Alex Papaconstatinou were happily awaiting the birth of their second child: a brother for their daughter Emma. But during the pregnancy, Oana had this strange feeling that her baby was in pain. \u201cI remember feeling sort of odd one day during my pregnancy; it was less that I was uncomfortable and more that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":64072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[3721,3720,3722],"yoast_head":"\nBaby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oana and Alex Papaconstatinou were happily awaiting the birth of their second child: a brother for their daughter Emma. But during the pregnancy, Oana had this strange feeling that her baby was in pain. \u201cI remember feeling sort of odd one day during my pregnancy; it was less that I was uncomfortable and more that […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/g2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"615\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"409\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\"},\"wordCount\":540,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"baby only lives 165 days\",\"blood cancer\",\"children's hospice\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\",\"name\":\"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Live Action News\",\"description\":\"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, & Pro-Life Issues\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Live Action\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"width\":701,\"height\":710,\"caption\":\"Live Action\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/\",\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\",\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nancy Flanders\"},\"description\":\"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News","og_description":"Oana and Alex Papaconstatinou were happily awaiting the birth of their second child: a brother for their daughter Emma. But during the pregnancy, Oana had this strange feeling that her baby was in pain. \u201cI remember feeling sort of odd one day during my pregnancy; it was less that I was uncomfortable and more that […]","og_url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/","og_site_name":"Live Action News","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","article_published_time":"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":615,"height":409,"url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/g2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nancy Flanders","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@liveaction","twitter_site":"@liveaction","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nancy Flanders","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/"},"author":{"name":"Nancy Flanders","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef"},"headline":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours","datePublished":"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/"},"wordCount":540,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"keywords":["baby only lives 165 days","blood cancer","children's hospice"],"articleSection":["Issues"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/","name":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours - Live Action News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-23T15:03:41+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-27T00:10:44+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baby-george-lived-165-days-parents-hope-life-will-change\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Baby George only lived for 165 days, but his parents hope his life will change yours"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","name":"Live Action News","description":"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, & Pro-Life Issues","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization","name":"Live Action","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","width":701,"height":710,"caption":"Live Action"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef","name":"Nancy Flanders","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nancy Flanders"},"description":"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63929"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64203,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63929\/revisions\/64203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}