When Rodericka Moore was 24 weeks pregnant with her second child, doctors were forced to make a drastic decision to save her life. Moore had developed preeclampsia, and her baby had to be delivered in hopes of saving both mother and child. Baby Amari was born weighing just 15 ounces and doctors told Moore that the chances her son would make it even 24 hours were slim. He could fit in the palm of a hand.

“[The doctors] never said he was going to be okay,” Moore told NBC 11 out of Atlanta. “They were like, we have to prepare you for the worst.”

But Moore never gave up hope. Amari spent 120 days in the neonatal intensive care unit and has fought his way through two rounds of pneumonia and four hernia surgeries. But now, at eight months old, he is at home with his parents and big brother.

“I didn’t think a 15 ounce baby had hope. I didn’t think a 15 ounce baby could be normal, could come home on no oxygen and no feeding tubes,” said Moore.

Thanks to advances in technology and medicine, micro-preemies like Amari have ever-increasing odds of surviving and thriving. And when the mother’s life is at risk, an emergency C-section offers the best chance of saving both people – the mother and her baby.