Part 1 – Our First Son

OK, you’ve been hearing about this adoption from my husband on www.netsato.com so now here’s MY side of the story. Not that it differs THAT much but women usually tend to fill in more details than men do and from the comments that he’s gotten, I think it’s about time I told the WHOLE story.

As my husband has said, pregnancy and childbirth has not been easy, nor the joyous occasion that it should be for us. Our first son was born in November of 2001 with a condition called hypotonia and to this very day, we still do not know what caused it.

Because of his condition, the delivery was very difficult. I pushed for 2½ hours then his head got stuck. I had to have a complicated emergency c-section procedure. I was 34 years old at the time. When they finally got him out, we did not hear him cry. His APGAR scores were 2 and 1. (if you don’t know what that is, go here to find out more) He spent the first 2½ months of his life in the hospital NICU and he was finally able to come home in January of 2002 with lots of equipment. He had a machine to monitor his breathing, a machine to monitor his oxygen intake, a feeding machine and we had nurses come to care for him during the day while we worked. Our pediatrician/neurologist warned us that someday he will just stop breathing and that is exactly what happened.

At 8 months of age, my husband and I were out shopping one Sunday morning. Our son was in his stroller but he was very fussy. I picked him up and was carrying him around while we finished at the store. While waiting at the checkout, I felt that our son had gone limp. There was a hospital nearby so we rushed him there while I performed CPR in the car.

They were able to resuscitate him but he was in a coma when they transferred him to the children’s hospital. We were told that is was very difficult to get him back and because he was out so long, that if he were to regain consciousness, that he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. It was a tough decision but we decided to let him go to a better place. I am not one to sit around and mull over things. Things happen for a reason and I knew that if I just followed my heart, things would get better. A month after our first son passed away, we were pregnant again!