My name is Christen. I am 21.When I was 5 1/2 months pregnant with my baby boy he was diagnosed with a serious heart defect, which is called "Hypoplastic Left Heart". It's probably the most serious form of heart disease you can have. The chances of surviving the first surgery alone are only 70%,which may seem like a lot but actually according to the doctors that a very high risk surgery. Basically, what "Hypoplastic left heart" means is that only half of my baby's heart was developed, the only chances for his survival were either a heart transplant, which it is very unlikely to find a donor (which I guess is good) or a series of three high risk surgeries. My husband and I were devastated, the doctors told us we had the option of terminating the pregnancy, which I thought was horrifying. I told them I would never do that and from that moment on I was determined to doing everything humanly possible to make sure my baby lived. I could spend a lot of time telling you how much trouble the insurance companies gave me, but we have to keep these short. My baby did have his surgery and he was in the hospital for 1 month and 17 days. He was doing great and he looked great. One day, I noticed he didn't want to eat and he looked a little blue, I called the hospital where he had had the surgery and the cardiologist on call told me to bring him to emergency. It's even hard for me to type this now but, I got there with my husband and we couldn't have been there more than ten minutes when his oxygen level started getting lower and lower and finally he died.
It was very fast and I don't think he suffered, but I'll never forget the blank little stare in his eyes when he died. I love him so, so much as I'm sure everyone misses their children who have died. My Geoffy was 3 months and 3 days old. He was born November 13th 1997 and he passed away February 16th 1998. Today, the day I'm typing this is March 13th 1998 and my "yidaBoo" would have been 4 months old.
I Love You Geoffy!!
Christen
You can send email to Christen at: [email protected]
mail welcome
anniversary date 2-16-98
date of post 3-13-98
