PORT ANGELES – Caydence Barnett, nicknamed Supergirl, is home.
About a dozen family and friends greeted Caydence and her parents, Chris and Tiffany Barnett, on Wednesday upon her arrival in her Port Angeles home for the first time since her Feb. 21 premature birth.
A banner on the side of the home on Leighland Avenue said, “Welcome home, Supergirl.”
Caydence, the first child of her parents, is now up to 6 pounds 6 ounces from her birth weight of 2 pounds 9 ounces in Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
The baby has undergone five surgeries and has spent her first four months of life hospitalized.
“This is only the second time she’s been outside,” Tiffany Barnett told the well-wishers as she carried in from the car the baby bundled in blankets decorated with Supergirl drawings.
Caydence was born with heart defects caused by a random genetic accident called Turner Syndrome.
Those born with Turner Syndrome tend to be short, but intelligence and life span are not affected, according to information on the Turner Syndrome Society of the United States Web site, www.turner-syndrome-us.org.
Turner Syndrome is caused by the complete or partial absence of one of the two X chromosomes normally found in women, according to the Web site, and is among the most common chromosomal abnormalities.
The baby is still practicing drinking from a bottle.
Because she is currently being fed through a “g-tube” – a tube surgically placed in her stomach- Caydence must learn how to use her muscles to suck on a bottle, as well as learning to associate the bottle with eating – something she does not yet do.
