Rosie Long - Anthony
Hello, my name is Rosie long and I had a VP baby a little over one year ago. His Name is Anthony. We just hit one year and boy were we excited to get through the first year, it was a tough one. A lot of obstacles to overcome.
Our story goes back to August 15th 2003. It was about 1pm and I woke up from a nap having to use the rest room. When I sat down I felt slight pressure and heard a funny noise. When I looked down all I saw was blood. Knowing that my water broke, I called my mom. My husband was at work and not able to be gotten a hold of. I let her know what happened and we then rushed to the hospital. We arrived within a half hour of my water breaking and the nightmare continues from there.
My husband and I went to what we thought was a very respectable hospital, I had my other daughter there and had a wonderful experience, but not that day. They let me labor bleeding for 10 hours. We tried to get the doctor to deliver but he did not feel it was necessary. At about 9:30pm they decided to do an emergency C-section, they still did not get him out for another hour and 7 minutes. At birth he was not breathing, they bagged him and sent him to the NICU. He was eventually intubated with a breathing tube. He suffered a severe stroke and complete kidney and liver failure. He had a hemoglobin count of 5.5 at birth. A normal infant usually has a hemoglobin count of between 15-18 (that gives you an idea of how much blood he lost).
He was transferred to Riley Hospital for children where he was in their NICU for the next 6weeks. I was diagnosed with vasa previa from the autopsy of the placenta. We owe his life to a lot of prayers and the staff at Riley. They say he is definitely one for the books. He was not expected to make it through the first week and here we are just celebrating his first birthday. He has been diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy, and has only about 30-40% function of his kidneys. He takes 27 doses of medicine a day to regulate the kidneys and also for seizures. He has a feeding tube in his belly, he does not eat out of his mouth yet, but we are confidant that one day he will. We get physical, occupational, and speech therapies twice weekly. It is tuff but he is a very happy and content baby. You would not know by looking at him that he was a sick baby, he looks very healthy.
This is a short version of out story. I would love to get involved in the foundation, it took me a while to be able to talk about this but now I want to help insure that no other mother has to go through what we have. It is devastating to have a healthy pregnancy and a plan of normal child birth and then all of a sudden all of those dreams just taken away by something that seems so easy to diagnose. Please let me be apart of the fight to get this done for the future of our unborn children.
Thank you,
Rosie Long