Timmy's story

Timmy's story:

Sunday about a month ago when I went into L&D because I felt like he'd been moving around less. Normally after I would eat he would be super active and on that day, he hadn't been. I tried laying down and counting kicks but felt like I wasn't getting enough. They monitored him with an NST and he failed the first one for about half an hour, but then did well enough on a second one after they "buzzed him" to wake him with a buzzer so that I was able to go home with directions to see my dr. in the office the next day. Fast forward to the next day where he didn't do well on his NST again and then I had an ultrasound. For half an hour I was in that room, watching him be unresponsive and not practice his breathing. The ultrasound tech kept pushing him around in my belly, using the buzzer, etc. but after awhile we were both quiet as I could tell things weren't right. I went to the hospital and had an emergency c-section a few hours later. Initially he came out with an apgar of 7/9 and then even scored a 9/9 a few minutes later. We were then so relieved that we'd gotten him out in time and that he would be okay. We had no idea how wrong we would be. :(

About an hour of being in recovery, he was still grunting as he was breathing. I asked the nicu nurse to please take him as it was making me nervous that he was still doing that. They all thought that it was just because he had fluid in his lungs from being a c-section baby. Basically as soon as they got Timmy to the nicu, his body went into shock. We had no idea, but almost his entire blood volume had bled into me because of a placental abruption and his body just couldn't take it anymore. It kills me to think that we were holding him and cooing over him and taking pictures for that hour and meanwhile none of us had a clue of what his little body was going through. I can only hope and pray to God that he wasn't in pain. I know in my heart that there's nothing any of us could have done to know what was going on inside of him but that doesn't make my heart feel any less sad and somewhat guilty because of it. :(

From there, Timmy needed a ton of support and quite honestly he did remain stable for different times during the next few days but he really never got better. His body just couldn’t. They made the decision to put him on cooling blankets for 72 hours. This slowed down his brain and his heart so that his body would have a chance to try to heal itself. We believe now that this is what kept him alive for so long. Unfortunately his body had just been shocked so much that there was just no way for it to recover. As they started to warm him up and bring his temperature back, theoretically his organs should have started to work again on their own, but they just couldn’t. He was completely warm as of 2:00 on Friday, September 23rd and he just wasn’t the same from then on. He had several irregular heart patterns after that and just wasn’t taking oxygen into his blood the way he was earlier. What’s interesting though is that his testing showed (and Children’s Hospital Cardiology agreed) that his heart appeared to be normal so there don’t seem to be any answers there as of yet either. At 8:48 his fight was over. Thankfully throughout the day, we talked to Timmy and told him so much about everyone that loves him. We told him all about his sister Madelyn and how much she would have loved him and taken care of him. Even before he passed away, we were able to talk to him again, hold him for what was the first time since he’d gotten sick, and tell him how much we love him and that’d he done such a great job trying to stay with us. We are so proud of our little boy and what he did while he was here. Timmy honestly has touched so many people in just four days and still has so many people that love him and are praying for him and for us and our family. “There is no footprint so small that it cannot make an impact on the world,” and Timmy has certain done that and will continue to do so. Just please remember us in the upcoming days and weeks as we remember our little boy. I know we never thought that this would happen. Instead of bringing him home we are preparing to say goodbye one final time later time later this week. This little boy who we had prepared for, planned for, dreamed for, will just continue to live on in our hearts. He will be there forever though and one day when she’s old enough to understand, we’ll tell Madelyn all about her little brother and how hard he fought to stay with us and meet her.

It's been almost a month now since Timmy was born and it's so surreal still. Some days are better than others but I think I am still somewhat in shock that my little boy was here and now he's gone. We all miss him so much. We'll always be a family of four now. It's just that one of our children has feet and the other one has angel wings. I think we all just keep telling ourselves that Timmy is up there with his Grandpa Tim and they are probably playing together and having fun.