Leesburg girl to be poster child for new Ronald McDonald House in Augusta

AUGUSTA — A new Ronald McDonald House in Augusta that has a Leesburg girl as its poster child is having its ribbon-cutting this week.

At 4 p.m. Thursday on Harper Street in Augusta, a ribbon-cutting will be conducted at a new Ronald McDonald House with a 5-year-old from Leesburg as its poster child. The child was selected for the honor after a series of events following her birth brought her family closer together by proving that miracles do happen.

The family of Emma Nickole “Nicki” Harper has frequented Augusta’s Children’s Hospital of Georgia since medical circumstances resulted in Nicki being born via Cesarean section at 26 weeks.

“In July 2009, I found out I was pregnant with my first child. This would make my husband’s second child,” said Stephanie Oxley, Nicki’s mother. “Both of our families were very happy. I did not have any complications with the pregnancy at the beginning.

“In October 2009, I went for my 20-week ultrasound to find out the sex. We found out that we were having a girl, but that is not the only thing we found out. Our baby girl’s kidneys were dilated.”

Oxley was referred to a high-risk doctor. On Dec. 1, she was told that Nicki had to be delivered by emergency C-section at 26 weeks and five days. She was born at 21 ounces and 12 inches long at 1:48 p.m. and was rushed directly to the neonatal intensive care unit at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

“I did not get to see her until 9:30 that night. She was so tiny and hooked up to all types of machines,” Oxley recalled. “I was so scared for our little girl. The nurses and doctors told me that she was in the best place and her likelihood of survival was 85 percent.”

A couple of weeks later, on Dec. 17, the family was informed that Nicki had a massive stroke and would not survive. She hung in there, though, and on Christmas Day, her mother got to hold and bathe her for the first time. She was taken off of oxygen but could not get off the intravenous therapy giving her the nutrition she needed. Nicki stayed in the NICU until March 29, 2010, when she was transferred to Children’s Hospital of Georgia to have an esophagus wrap and gastrostomy tube placement.

She stayed in Augusta for six weeks, during which time the family stayed at the Ronald McDonald House on Greene Street. In July 2010, Nicki had kidney surgery in Augusta to remove the dead portion of her kidney. During this timeframe, the family was averaging one visit a month to the area — and they still go for regular checkups.

Nicki had her first seizure in February 2012, a year after she started wearing glasses.

“Today she is an active 5-year-old that does not let anything or anyone get her down. She does have some developmental delays, but she thrives everyday,” said Oxley of her daughter, who is now in the special education pre-K program in Lee County.

In July 2013, officials announced that Nicki would be the poster child for the Ronald McDonald House.

“We love the house so much for what they have done for us. The house is our home away from home,” Oxley said. “We don’t know what we would have done if it was not for the house being in Augusta. The new house is right next to the Children’s Hospital of Georgia. It will be so much easier for the families to be able to see their children.”

Oxley and her mother have made friends at the old house that they have come to call family, and the Leesburg family said they are hopeful the new house will bring with it new memories.

“I wished we lived closer to the house so we could give back to them as much as they have given to us. If it wasn’t for the house, we would not have been able to be close to Nicki when she was in the NICU in 2010 for six weeks,” Oxley said. “I promise you that if we ever hit the lottery, I would give it all to the house. That is how grateful we are to them. We enjoy going back to the house to let Nicki see where we stayed while she was in the NICU. When she gets older where she can understand, I will show her pictures of the old house to remind her of the house that brought us hope.”

The Greene Street facility officially became known as the Ronald McDonald House in 1984 and has 11 bedrooms. The new home, on the campus of the hospital, is a 23-bedroom home, wrote Betts Murdison, president and CEO of Ronald McDonald Charities of Augusta in a letter submitted to The Augusta Chronicle.

In that letter, which ran Friday, she credits the team effort in making the house — the result of an ongoing capital campaign to pay for the additional accommodations the charity needs — a reality.

“This effort has been led by two extraordinary families. If not for the work of Tori and Braye Boardman, and Debbie and Dr. Charlie Howell, I would not be writing this letter,” Murdison wrote. “These four people have rallied the families of our community, and together we have raised nearly $6 million to build the sorely needed home for the families of Georgia and beyond.

“Thank you to our architect, Nick Dickinson Jr. of Dickinson Architects, and thank you to our contractor, R.W. Allen, for building the perfect home for our families.”

The house has been built for the families of the patients of Children’s Hospital of Georgia and the Joseph M. Still Burn Center, Murdison said.