After giving birth, a mother hears ten words before being taken away by the medісаɩ staff.
One of the most exciting periods in a couple’s lives might be when they are expecting. Making sure the infant is healthy and doing well might also contribute to the anxiousness. Stephanie George was a happy expectant mother, but she missed oᴜt on ultrasounds during part of her pregnancy because of an insurance problem. When she did, she was informed of some unsettling information.
The doctors told her that the baby growing inside her had many problems.
“It was at that appointment that they told us that he would most likely have some sort of syndrome and that we had no choice but to continue the pregnancy. I remember feeling angry when I heard that, “no choice but to continue”. As if they’d already deemed her life not worth continuing if we’d arrived earlier,” Stephanie said in an interview.
Her baby suffered from a hole in the heart and other complications resulting from a double outlet of the right ventricle, Fallot’s tetralogy, ventricular septal defect, and pulmonary stenosis.
When the day came, Sebastian was born, weighing just 3 pounds and 14 ounces.
“I heard three things when he finally came out: ‘He’s here’, ‘He’s breathing’ and ‘He’s got a ton of hair’. What a moment of joy,” Stephanie recalls. And I say ‘moment’ because the joy only lasted as long as it took.
Within minutes, they inserted a breathing tube, then the cardiology team took him away while I recovered. We had no idea what the future held, and nothing could have prepared us for the successive traumas we experienced over the next 100 days.”
After Sebastian was born, Stephanie and her husband were repeatedly told that he wouldn’t be alert and wouldn’t have a real life. He underwent surgery and was eventually diagnosed with Cornelia de Lange syndrome. As a result, he is deaf, possibly blind, and will not be able to walk or talk.
The family decided to stay positive, thinking about the good they see and what their baby can do rather than what he can’t.
“They didn’t tell me his smile would light up any room. They didn’t tell me that his smile would light up any room and that his personality would be so soothing to everyone who met him, even strangers. He has a way of making people feel at peace. They didn’t tell me about all the knowledge I would gain by taking care of him. And they certainly didn’t tell me that he would teach us all the things we didn’t know we needed to learn, like patience, understanding, graтιтude, humility, inclusion, thankfulness, selflessness and never taking a single day for granted,” Stephanie said.
