Eight-month-old John Davenport, born 12 weeks premature, is enjoying his first Christmas with parents Jeff and Maria Davenport, of Cranston. John was delivered by cesarean section because of a disorder that threatened the lives of mother and baby.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

CRANSTON Not so long ago, we would have a different ending to this Christmas story. We would write of what might have been, of a visit, perhaps, to a tiny grave — or two graves, one the mother’s, the other her infant son’s.

Instead, we have baby John, dressed in his red booties and snowman suit, bouncing on his father’s knee next to the family Christmas tree.

“He’s healthy,” says Jeff Davenport.

“We both say we got the best gift,” says his wife, Maria.

Flash back to Christmas 2006.

Maria had recently learned that she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, and the news added excitement to a holiday they both cherish. They fantasized about December 2007, when they would hang a new stocking on the fireplace mantel. They would make an ornament with baby’s picture and hang it on the tree next to one of them on their wedding day. Maria, 31, an accountant, and Jeff, 34, a Providence firefighter, would celebrate baby’s first Christmas.

Winter passed without complication. The Davenports ordered a crib and changing table and began to convert their spare bedroom into their baby-to-be’s room. They figured they had plenty of time: their firstborn was due in July.

On the morning of April 16, Maria experienced pain in her upper abdomen. A midwife at her doctor’s office examined her and concluded that she probably had indigestion. Maria went home and took Tylenol. She felt better.

She felt bad again the next day. Suspecting indigestion was not the problem, Maria went back to her doctor. Blood was drawn for testing. She went home again.

On the morning of April 18, the phone rang.

Get very quickly to Women & Infants Hospital, the voice from her doctor’s office said.

“Can I shower first?” Maria said.

No.

Jeff drove home to get his wife.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“I think we might have the baby,” Maria said.

“It’s too early,” Jeff said.

Maria was admitted to the hospital’s emergency room, still unclear what was wrong. Her blood pressure was perilously high, and there was fear she might have a seizure. Medications were given, more tests administered, a decision quickly made.

You’re going to have the baby, a doctor said.

“This week?” Jeff said.

No, the doctor said, within the hour.

The diagnosis was severe preeclampsia, also known as toxemia, a disorder that can cause damage to the mother’s kidneys and liver, and to the placenta, which supports the life of a fetus. Left untreated, an extreme case can progress to a condition that threatens the life of mother and child.

Not so many years ago, before neonatal medicine began to achieve the extraordinary, the story might have ended tragically.

“I would have died,” Maria says. “The baby would have died.”

Says Jeff: “The old stories you hear: ‘Died during delivery.’ ”

Maria was taken to the operating room, where a cesarean section was performed under general anesthesia. John Davenport weighed two pounds, one ounce — so small that Jeff’s wedding ring fit around his ankle. John was 12 weeks premature. His lungs were incapable of independently sustaining life. He was sent to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, commonly referred to as NICU.

Almost four months passed, his parents visiting every day. John gained weight and his lungs began to mature. Color came into his cheeks. He responded to his parents.

On Aug. 9, he went home.

“It was probably the best day of our lives, next to the day we got married,” Maria says.

Summer turned to fall and John continued to progress. He progresses still. His lungs are yet to develop fully, and he sleeps with oxygen, but otherwise, he shows no sign of the traumatic beginning to his life. He smiles and laughs, and he cries when he wants his bottle.

He is, dare we say, chubby.

He is normal.

The Davenports have visited NICU several times since their son’s discharge, and they have donated a rocking chair to the unit.

“They are miracle workers in there,” says Jeff.

“We can’t repay them,” says Marie. “They saved his life.”

The Davenports credit their religion with helping to sustain them during the spring and summer. “It never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t make it,” says Maria, a Roman Catholic, like her husband. “We kept our faith.”

There has been no shopping spree this year for the Davenports, who bounce on their knee their greatest gift, a boy who now weighs 15 pounds. But they have bought a stocking embroidered “John” — it’s the largest one on the mantel — and an ornament with a photo of their baby hangs near their wedding ornament. In years to come, Santa will visit, leaving toys wrapped in foil under the tree. A motorized miniature fire truck that firefighter Jeff will teach his son to ride will be in the garage. They will have photos of a two pound, one-ounce person and bad memories replaced by good.

And so what might have been the end is but a chapter in the story of a child on whom fate first frowned, but now has smiled.

“We are very lucky this Christmas,” says his mother. “We’re very blessed.”

gwmiller@projo.com