LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Nearly 20 years ago, a little girl named Breanna Coleman was born so early, so small, that virtually no one thought she would survive.
But no one knew about a father filled with faith or a Louisville doctor who still gets emotional thinking about Breanna all these years later.
When she was born at Norton Children's Hospital at just past 23 weeks, Breanna was as small as a Beanie Baby, at just 10-3/4 ounces. That day came on March 30, 2000, and it's a day Dr. Stephen Wright will never forget.
"She just fit in the palm of my hand ... and just praying for her and wondering how she was going to do," Wright said.
Breanna dropped to 9 ounces, but from day one, Dwight Coleman, her prayerful father, never doubted the successful outcome of his daughter's fight.
"When she was born, there I was — all smiles and a proud papa — and everyone else was all gloom-and-doom expressions on their face," he said. "But God assured me that everything was gonna be fine.
"I had a peace about it."
That peace turned out to be prophetic. A little more than a month after birth, doctors finally allowed Lisa Coleman to hold her baby.
Dwight and Lisa Coleman, pictured with their daughter Breanna Coleman, a preemie baby.
"When I was pregnant, I never felt her move around. She was so small," she said. "And when we held her, she would bend those little fingers and I thought, 'That's the way it would have felt if I'd felt her inside when she moved her little fingers and touched me.' It was special."
Wright said Breanna is the smallest preemie he's ever seen make it without major medical complications.
Dr. Stephen Wright of Norton Children's Hospital
"I called her back then, like she's the miracle baby," he said. "And I think she still is."
While Breanna got medical attention in Louisville, Lisa Coleman needed to recuperate back home, three hours away in Grand Rivers, Kentucky, as nurses watched Breanna around the clock.
"They never gave up," she said. "They were always trying to do something. I want to say thank you.
Now, Brianna is a 19-year-old college student at Western Kentucky Technical College. Her biggest struggle is occasional blurry vision.
"I can read pretty good ... but I have to look sort of close at it sometimes to be able to see it," she said.
When she's not studying, Breanna likes to build characters from Harry Potter movies she loves.
"I have got a major collection of Legos — the little plastic bricks," she said. "I have probably, like, too many."
Breanna Coleman
Now, the littlest of babies has one big dream: getting a good job after college.
"Something that I love doing, because I know a lot of people don't love their job," she said.
"She's very loving," Lisa Coleman said. "Sometimes, I wonder where she got that ... She has a big heart, and sometimes I don't always have that big heart, and I wonder where she gets that."
That big heart might come from all the love Breanna received since her birth, because on her very first birthday, she was born with the littlest of hearts.
The Colemans hope to make the journey soon to Louisville to say thanks to the staff at Norton Children's Hospital, and Lisa and Dwight Coleman said they would love to give Wright a big hug.
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