LARAMIE - Sometimes, the greatest gifts come only after the greatest struggle.

In November, the Pierson family's greatest holiday gift came early.

Just before midnight on Nov. 2, Troy and Cara Pierson, parents already to a 6-year-old son named Jacob, went to Ivinson Memorial Hospital to deliver their second son. His name - Jonah.

Cara's labor was going well, she remembers, and she was just about to receive an epidural.

Suddenly, Cara heard the nurses talking about putting her under for an emergency C-section.

"The placenta had detached, and that, of course, is how the baby receives nutrients and oxygen," Cara said. "Immediately, he started bleeding and he was not getting oxygen. He basically died."

Cara was put under for an emergency C-section.

"From what I understand, they usually leave you awake for a C-section," Cara said. "But they didn't have that kind of time. They had to get Jonah out fast."

By C-section, Jonah was delivered at IMH within five minutes, Cara said.

"Usually husbands get to be in there for C-sections, but Troy wasn't able to be," Cara said. "Nobody really had time to explain to me what was going on. I was hearing, 'C-section,' and 'Get this baby out.' They were making me do all kind of weird things. But I knew it was bad when they were knocking me out, my husband was outside the door."

The nurses at IMH had realized that something was going wrong when signs of a detached placenta showed up on a fetal monitoring system used during Jonah's birth, said Elaine Volin, director of family care at IMH.

Each delivery room at IMH features delivery monitoring systems, purchased for the hospital by the IMH Foundation over two years ago.

"I was hooked up to a fetal monitor, and they were watching," Cara said. "We were fortunate that it happened when it did and that they had seen it. If they hadn't, our outcome would have been completely different."

Even after delivery, though, Jonah was not quite safe yet.

"We could tell right away that there was a problem since the baby was so gray," said Bonnie Shawver, certified registered nurse anesthetist at IMH.

"His color indicated that he was not getting enough blood. I could tell that there was a major problem and the only fast way to get medicine to him was to do a breathing tube. We started breathing for him and giving him CPR."

According to Volin, a separated placenta and abruption is very rare during childbirth. Still, her staff has to be prepared for any situation.

"Our staff takes a neonatal resuscitation class every year," Volin said. "We always work for the 'what ifs.' A placenta separating and an abruption is one of those things that doesn't happen very often, but we need to know what to happen when it does. We want to give these babies every chance they can have."

Troy, meanwhile, was outside of the room, waiting and worrying.

"Jonah was born at 11:25, and they opened the door and told me at 11:50 that he was breathing and that he blinked," Troy remembers, emotional. "(But) they gave him around a 1 percent chance."

Troy was not willing to give up.

"The first time I got to see him, I walked over to him and I looked at Jonah, and he was looking right at me," Troy said. "He grabbed my finger, and he was squeezing it. They said not to read too much into that, but as I was looking around, he was following me."

So Troy took out his cell phone and took pictures of his son looking right at him.

"He didn't open his eyes again until Saturday morning," Troy said. "But I got the feeling that he just didn't want us to give up on him."

The night he was born, the Piersons had to make the split-second decision to have their tiny son transported by helicopter to the Children's Hospital in Denver.

"(The decisions) started when he was born here, before he was sent to Denver," Cara said.

"The doctors here said, 'Are you sure you want to send him to Denver? We don't think he'll make it. We think you are going to regret never having any time with him.' But Troy was halfway to Denver at that point, and I knew I would most regret not doing everything I could for my child."

Troy, that night, saw the helicopter land on Children's Hospital in Denver carrying his son.

"I saw the helicopter land on Children's Hospital, and I got to neonatal ICU. I immediately saw 20 doctors around Jonah," Troy said.

At the Children's Hospital, Jonah was put into CoolCap treatment, a trial treatment in which a water-filled cap is placed on the heads of newborns who were oxygen-deprived at birth.

"It is really great that IMH saved Jonah's life and Children's Hospital gave him his life back," Troy said.

Cara, holding her son, who is now healthy and happy, agreed.

"It really started with everything that they did for him at IMH," Cara said. "And then, down in Denver, he made an improvement every day. It was just, every day, there was something that made them think, 'We can't completely give up hope."'

Now, Jonah is full of life, with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes, and 6-year-old brother Jacob is able to hold and play with his brother.

"Oh, my brother is so cute," Jacob gushed. "He is so cuddly and fun to hold and play with. I like to sing him songs."

"Jacob loves his baby brother," his mother said. "When we were still in the hospital here, Jacob came in to my hospital room. He knew that his baby brother was very, very sick and that we weren't sure he was going to make it. We said something like, 'We are just asking God to make your baby brother better.'

"Jacob got this really contemplative look on his face and he goes, 'You know, I asked God to give me a baby brother, and he did. So, maybe if I ask him to make him better…' He just stopped there, like he was thinking, 'He already gave me something I wanted, so if I ask him for this, he'll do that too."'