Owen is a miracle!
"I had my son Owen Hubert at 35 w 4 days via C-section, due to a placental abruption.
Our son Owen's heart rate was only at 81 bpm. I was rushed to the OR room not quite knowing what was going on at all. That whole night and day prior I was having contractions and aches. That previous day I had went to a routine check up, told them about the cramping and was sent over to L& D they didn’t do any sort of ultrasound and saw I was dilated a little, with contractions. Sent me home, said come back when closer. That last month of my pregnancy I was dealing with high blood pressure, was on medication, was told they had plenty of room to move the dosage but never did even though my complaints of not feeling well and very high readings at home, I’d take my bp medicine and go into my appointments the bp would be high but supposedly not high enough to move the dosage even though as the medication wore off at home my blood pressure would get very high. Up and down.
I remember going to sleep praying please please keep my baby alive, my poor fiancé was left alone as we were taken to surgery not knowing if he would ever see us alive again. Owen was being resuscitated for 16 minutes, they did total body cooling (or whole-body hypothermia), which is a process where the baby’s temperature is carefully lowered after a traumatic labor experience cooled for 3 days then rewarmed. Owen did have one small seizure during this. He was on a ventilator and was in very rough shape. He had Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy. He was delivered at Mercy and sent to Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. I had to stay 2 days at Mercy without my baby trying to recover from a vertical c section and cut the opposite way inside, separated for the first time then not knowing if he would survive at all. Thanks to the Ronald McDonald House, they set us up to stay there while he was in the NICU. They went above and beyond helping us. We are truly blessed for Mercy, Childrens and Ronald McDonald house for everything they each did.
During the stay we were told Owen would FOR SURE have some sort of damage but didn’t know what the extent would be until an MRI. But, when Owen had the MRI, it came back NORMAL! He started weaning off the vent, then other wires and tubings. I’ve taken Owen to a primary care pediatrician and a neurologist. Both say he’s perfectly normal to them, neurologist even calling him a “miracle” to been threw such a rough start and resuscitated for 16 minutes with absolutely no injury is truly amazing and a miracle.
I want to make others aware of how serious their blood pressure is during pregnancy you are your own advocate. I tried telling my doctor multiple time to raise the dosage and they refused. I was told by other doctors they suspect this was caused by poor blood pressure control! I tried to speak up. We need more doctors taking blood pressure seriously. With my first daughter I experienced pre eclampsia so know what to look for and to speak out, and still wasn’t heard! This little man I had placental abruption and gastrointestinal hypertension. As a mother this experience has really changed me and traumatized me. I hope this story can make it somewhere and help someone so they don’t go threw this and to others to show there is such thing as miracle." - NICU Mom, Stephanie
