Saturday, May 9, 2015

Our Son

We'd known for a few weeks that he had a tumor which would make delivery complicated, but it was difficult to diagnose the full extent of it before he was born. We met with his teams of doctors who would wait until he was born to run further tests.
I'd gone in for my 3-hour glucose test, and realized I hadn't felt him move in a while. I was sent to Labor and Delivery for observation. He had a strong heartbeat, but wasn't moving, and they didn't see the typical accelerations in heart rate that they like to see. They did a Bio-Physical Profile, which he failed. He wasn't taking practice breaths and wasn't moving at all. The tech noticed something on his brain as well, which was not in the scan the week before. The doctors decided he had a better chance outside than in.
My son was born via emergency C-section less than an hour later on 5/6/15 at 1:44pm. He weighed 6.1 lbs and was 16.75 inches long. Extremely big for a 31.5 week old baby. We didn't get to hear him cry, because he wasn't breathing on his own. The NICU team was standing by and was able to stabilize him. We knew because of the tumor, that he would have to be transferred to the large hospital upstate. I was wheeled into the recovery room, and he was rushed off to the NICU. They prepped him for transport and I was able to see and touch him in his little incubator before they took him away on the helicopter.
I spent the next 2 nights in the hospital, very worried, but the staff did a great job keeping me informed. I was discharged on 5/8, a little early, because it was becoming increasingly clear that the situation with our son was very critical.
We were able to go up and visit with him for a while before meeting with his teams of doctors. The tumor made it so that his blood was unable to clot, this lead to a bleed around his brain that they were unable to stop. By the time they were able to have him stable enough to run a CT Scan, the damage was extensive. If our son were to live, he would essentially be comatose for his entire life.
We were given the decision to continue or stop care. We chose to let our son go. We were able to hold him and see him one last time. He passed surrounded by love and his family. He may have only been with us for a short period of time, but he will forever be in our hearts.
The staff at both hospitals were incredibly supportive and took wonderful care of us and our son.
We are making arrangements and the funeral will be sometime this week. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the March of Dimes. We thank everyone for their prayers and support during this time.

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