Addyson Faith

Well, early on in Shannon’s pregnancy one of the ultra sounds showed that the baby was missing a valve to the umbilical cord.  Usually a baby has three attached and ours had two.  So for most of the pregnancy we were worried.  Turns out that had nothing to do with what was about to happen.  Around midnight on Tuesday October 2nd, 2007 Shannon started feeling a lot of pressure in her stomach.  Her water broke and we rushed to the hospital.  We thought something was wrong because she instantly started having contractions.  They were about 1 minute apart.  When we got to the hospital the doctors were concerned that the baby was ready to come out.  The baby was turned sideways and they decided to deliver via C-Section.

At 3:30 am Shannon went into the operating room.  At 3:45 I was called in.  The anesthesiologist was sitting next to us.  At 4:00 am he started saying “Now get ready, this is going to happen really fast.  Get your camera out.  Now get ready, this is very exciting…….Oh no.  The baby is out(4:01 am), and this is not good.  The doctors are doing everything they can, they look very serious.   The baby is not breathing”  Now at this point I looked over to the little table where they took her.  The only thing I could see was her foot, it was black.

The doctors had put a tube down her throat, and they were breathing for her.  They took her out of the room.  So I sat there with my wife who had just finished with the C-Section.  The nurses said, “want to stay with your wife or go with your baby?”  What a horrible decision.  I think looking back, we were in shock.  Shannon told me to go with the baby.  As I walked behind the doctors and nurses pushing our new baby down the hall, she was lifeless.

Now from 4:01 to 7:00 am, the doctors worked on our baby girl, Addyson.  I just stood off to the side, not really knowing what was going on.  The nurses kept saying things like, “we will tell you what is going on once she stabilizes.”  As I looked down at Addyson, now breathing on her own but having seizures, she looked beautiful.  At one point she looked straight up at me and locked eyes with me.  I swear she was trying to tell me, “Don’t worry Daddy, I am going to be ok.”

As our family started showing up at the hospital, it was still unknown what was really going on.  A little after 7:00 am, we were told that Addyson had suffered severe oxygen deprivation.  It was unknown how long she had gone without oxygen.  Maybe hours, maybe days.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck three times.  We were told it took two doctors to remove it, because it was so tight.  One of the doctors that delivered Addyson was on an experimental board for what they were calling the cooling cap.  So immediately they were cooling Addyson’s body.  They told us that Addyson should be taken to Children’s Hospital in Denver.  She would stay there for three days with this cooling cap on her head.

When your brain suffers from oxygen deprivation.  It can be deadly.  They had no idea how serious it was, but she had several seizures within those three hours.  With the cooling cap, they cool the head down which would stop any further brain damage from occurring.  It would NOT fix any damage that might have been done.  There were so many unknowns at this point.  So here I was, standing over our new baby.  Not able to hold her.  Shannon hadn’t even seen her yet.  The Flight for Life team comes in, and starts wrapping her up for her trip to Denver.  Shannon was able to see her for about 10 minutes before they took her to Children’s Hospital.

When my mom and I got to Children’s Hospital we were taken up to her room.  The hospital had just opened 2 weeks prior.  So everything was brand new.  They had already began putting the cooling cap on her head.  This is when the fear set in.  The doctors pulled us aside and said, “you need to prepare for the worst.  Your baby might have suffered severe brain damage.  You need to prepare yourself for Cerebral Palsy or extreme retardation.  Your baby may spend the rest of her life bound to a wheel chair and eating from a tube.”  So how do you deal with that?  Isn’t the birth of a child supposed to be the happiest day of your life?

For three days she laid heavily sedated with a cooling cap on her head.  It looked like a tiny little helmet.  The nurses at Children’s Hospital were amazing.  I would drive up early and drive home late.  I had our oldest daughter at home, Ashlyn, so I would come home at night to be with her.  Shannon was still in the hospital.

After three days, they slowly started to warm Addyson up, and took the cooling cap off.  The nurses kept saying things like, “wow, she is really responding, she looks good”  She was very swollen and still pretty sedated.  I remember the first time I heard a noise from her.  A small little cry, felt so good to hear her cry.  So at this point it was a bit of a waiting game.  It looked like she was doing ok.  Everything was working, bladder, etc.  Shannon finally came with me on Saturday to see Addyson. Our oldest daughter Ashlyn came up on Sunday to see her.

So after a series of brain scans and brain tests, we were waiting and waiting for the results.  The neurologist came in and started poking and prying Addyson, and said “She is responding like a normal baby”  He was with about 5 interns so he was teaching them how to give an exam.  At one point he said, “well, she is looking pretty good, and her eeg and ekg look gorgeous”  I said “WHAT? did you just say??”  I said, can you please repeat that.  That was a very good sign.  Everything looked normal.  The doctors kept telling us, “don’t get your hopes up.  We still won’t know anything until she gets older, and we start seeing her motor skills develop.”

Addyson was able to return to PVHS after a week at Children’s.  She spent another week at PVHS.  She needed to learn how to eat before she could go home.  One of the nurses pulled us aside and wanted to explain how serious the situation was.  She said that Addyson really was a miracle baby, she said they didn’t expect her to recover from the trauma.  Especially that fast!   We later saw the same nurse at Target about a year later and she said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I remember you.  Addyson is a legend at our hospital.”

When I took Addyson to the doctor today for her 18 month check up.  Our doctor told me that it is very rare for babies to be born w/ such oxygen deprivation.  They only see about 2 or 3 babies a year with the degree that Addyson had. She said they still talk about Addyson and ask about Addyson at the hospital.  She told me about a baby that had been born with very similar deprivation levels that Addyson had.  She said she told the family about Addyson and her success.  That made me feel so good.  The whole time at the hospitals, that is what I wanted to hear.  I wanted to hear a nurse or a doctor say to me, “yes this is horrible, this is bad, BUT, there have been babies that have pulled through this.”  Now Addyson is that baby.

So there you go.  I could go on forever.  Shannon and I feel that without the power of prayer, that Addyson would not have made it thru.  Everything fell into place.  From the doctor that delivered her(she knew immediately to start cooling her body and prepare her for the experimental cooling cap) to the nurses at Children’s Hospital.  Everything was set in place perfectly!  When the doctor said today that she was 100 percent positive that Addyson is completely normal, you can imagine my relief.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for what he has done.  Addyson is a fighter, we truly believe that God has a purpose for her in her lifetime.  He chose to heal her.

Addyson Faith, I love her middle name, it has a whole new meaning now.  Sometimes I just like to call her “Legend”  She has a way about her.  I think she is just happy to be alive.  When she falls, when she gets hurt, she just acts different than your average child.  It is like she knows, she knows she is lucky to be here and that little bumps and bruises are not going to keep her down.  Even when she gets shots at the doctor.  It is like nothing to her,  “bring it on” I think she is saying.  “I have been through a lot worse!”

Ok, this is way longer than I thought.  Thanks for reading…..Thanks for our entire family and friends for their support and prayers.  We felt it!

“I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned
I only know at His right hand
Stands One who is my Savior
I take Him at his word and deed
Christ died to save me this I read
And in my heart I find a need
For Him to be my Savior”     < Aaron Shust>

Tom (Legend’s Daddy)