Entertainment

Terra Jole & Her Baby Are Great After A Scare

by Kayla Hawkins

When Terra Jole revealed she was pregnant on Little Women: LA, she explained that some little people can have uncommon complications when having children, but now that she's given birth to her daughter, did Terra have problems during delivery? Thankfully, both Terra and baby Penelope are doing great, but the labor wasn't without some close calls. Before the fifth episode of Terra's spinoff, Terra's Little Family, cut off in the middle of of her surgical delivery, we saw a little hint of the troubles to come in the April 22 episode, as Terra starts to panic.

Terra is not the most easygoing person when it comes to stressful situations — she'll freak out when the pressure is high. That's where her fiancé Joe Gnoffo comes in handy, because even though he gets worked up about the little things, he's GREAT with the big stuff, and he was able to help keep Terra calm and collected all throughout the early stages of her cesarean section. He even called Tonya to come over, when he knew that only someone else who also went through childbirth as a little person would be able to say the right thing. Things continued to go well after that, too. Terra's water didn't break, and she didn't go into labor ahead of schedule, so her C-section could go on as planned. But even though everything went fantastically before getting into the hospital room, afterwards, things get complicated. Instead of an epidural, Terra wants a spinal block, because it's easier to administer to a little person's spine. But the doctor wants an epidural, and it seems like they eventually are forced to use one.

That's where the episode cuts out, and the trailer above makes it look like there will be further complications for Terra and Penelope after that. Joe and Terra are worried about the 25 percent chance that Penelope might have double-dominant dwarfism. Because there are different types of little people, and Joe and Terra have different forms of it, that means that their daughter has a chance of inheriting both genes.

As Terra explained in the above interview with Entertainment Tonight, unfortunately, if faced with both types of dwarfism, there's a very high chance Penelope would not have survived long past birth because of undeveloped lungs. But luckily, both mom and daughter are doing well now, so whatever complications they faced in the hospital are firmly in the past, and we know that Terra's Little Family will definitely have a happy ending.

Image: Richard Knapp/Lifetime