Stories of Lost Children
Our Little Tender Heart
by Andrea, Oklahoma City, OK, U.S.A.
On May 3, 2003 our little miracle baby Hannah Lauren was born at 9:19 a.m. She had trouble breathing so they had to bag her to get her to take her first breath. She cried and then they cleaned her up checked her over and brought her to her father and I. We held her for a few minutes and then they took her for further testing and to be put on oxygen in the nursery since she had trouble at first. While she was in the nursery they hooked her up to a pulse oximeter and her pulse OX read 45% out of 100%. People should be dead at that range. They called in the pediatrician and he listened and looked at her. He came into the room to speak to us and informed us that they were moving her to another hospital in Okalhoma City for further evaluation becasue he hear a heart murmmur. They transported her to an NICU and hooked her up to all kinds of machines. The hospital where I was let me go visit her and I had to return that evening before the doors locked. We went ot see her and all the tubes and machines were unreal. This was not happening to us is all we could say. She does not deserve to go through this. The next morning the pediatrician taking care of her at the NICU called and told us that she had gone downhill last night and needed to be transfered to another NICU that was more advanced. I agreed to transfer her. They transfered her to another hospital and there they did a heart echo to see what was wrong. They discovered that she was born with a complex heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot. She had other problems wrong with her heart and lungs as well. She had a tear in her lung from the nurses bagging her at birth. She was on a ventilator, feeding tube, numerous IV's and a chest tube to drain fluid build up in her lungs. The cardiologists at Children's Hospital wanted her moved over there so they could watch her closer. She was once again moved to another NICU. She remained in NICU for 35 days before going home. While in NICU she developed a Staph infection and had to have a blood transfusion. She overcam the Staph infention and was getting better. After getting over the staph infection she started having seizures. They did a brain scan and determined that her brain was fine. She was probably having seizures becasue she had stopped breathing when she came down with staph and had to have CPR done to revive her. She came home early June 2002 and all was well. She was still on a feeding tube becasue her breathing rate was 3 times the amnoutn of a normal infant and they did not want to take the risk of her asprating formula into her lungs and causes more problems. Other than feeding tube and 5 medications we had to give her she was doing great. In July she got dehydrated from taking lasxix and was hospitalized for 3 days. In September she underwent her 1st surgery to repair her heart. They had to do the reapi in steps becasue of the difficulty of the defect. She had surgery and went home a week later doing great. She had a heart cath in March of 2003 and another surgery in April of 2003. The surgery went good and she was sent home about 10 days later. She had anoth heart cath in September 2003 and another surgery in November of 2003. As before surgery went fine and she went home. In Feburary of 2004 she had another heart cath and surgery once again in March 2004. After this surgery she went home in 2 days. She was a trooper and hated hospitals. On June 3, 2004 she had another heart cath to determine if she was ready for her final reapir of her heart. I was 9 months pregnant at the time with our third child so we opted to wait until after the baby was born. The doctors said she could wait for up to 6 months. Our daughter Alyssa Nikole was born June 8th at 8:18 am and she was beautiful. She developed aspiration pneumonia from swallowing amniotic fluid and was in NICU for 5 days. She overcame that and is now 2 months old and doing great. Since the baby was born we made an appointment for Hannah's final surgery for the repair. On July 13th we took her in for pre-op stuff. They sedated her for a heart echo. When it was time to wake up she was not waking up. Finally after about 30 minutes of ice cubes on her body and poking her she did wake up. She went for an x-ray and she had fallen back asleep. Her father wondered at times if she was breathing at all. We got into a hospital room and she started to wake up and started drinking and eating. Her father stayed with her that night while I went home with the baby and her older brother Taylor who is 6. The next morning I dropped Taylor off with his dads parents and headed for the hospital at 5 am. I got there and cuddled with Hannah for a while. She went back to sleep on my lap, which never happened any more becaseu she was at that age (2). They came and took us to the surgery holding area. We waited for about 45 minutes talking to doctors and signing consent forms. She had woke up so her dad decided to go into the operating room with her so they could put her to sleep in his arms and she would not be as scared. He laid her on the table when she was asleep and gave her a kiss. We waited in the waiting area for about 5 hours before a doctor came an updated us. He told us that she was having problems coming off the bypass machine and they had tried several times to do so. They decided to keep her on an ecmo machine which is a portable bypass machine. She stayed on that for about 36 hours and when they took her off of it in the PICU she was holding her own and doing great. The next day, Saturday morning, the nurses noticed that she was not responding to light in her eyes and her pupils were dialating in the shape of an oval. They told us that she should have woke up by now crying in pain. They called neurosurgery and they came and ran all their tests along with a CAT Scan that reavealed she had a massive brain hemerhage on top of her brain stem and it was blocking all blood flow to her brain. We knew she had gone to heaven to be an angel. Our family and friends all came to say god-bye. They closed up her chest and moved us all into an isolation room so that we could spend time with her and say our good-byes. That was the hardest day of my life. I was somehow at peace knowing that she did not have to have aymore surgeries or be in pain any longer. She was at peace and so was I. I will always love you Hannah and will see you again some day!! Love your mommy, Andrea
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