Our Story
This is the story of a normal family whose lives were forever changed by the addition of a special little girl named Emily.
Life was relatively uneventful at the Stauffer house until late November, 2000, when we found out that we would be having a baby. I was 41 years old at the time with 2 normal children - Anna and Ben - (who were ages 7 & 5) - and was in the process of returning to work.
Prior to pregnancy, I had been suffering from reflux and was finally beginning to wean myself off the Prilosec when I discovered I was pregnant. My morning sickness was horrible and the reflux recurred full blast. I wasn't able to eat much and didn't gain much weight. In fact my total weight gain was under 10 pounds by my 8th month of pregnancy.
During the pregnancy I had no idea that anything was wrong with the baby. Initially we attributed my lack of weight gain to my reflux problems. As the pregnancy progressed and the baby still didn't grow, there were suspicions that something else was wrong.
Five weeks before my due date, On July 9, 2001, my midwife sent me to a Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist at York Hospital for a sonogram. The doctor saw all kinds of problems with the baby - things previous sonograms at our local hospital never revealed. She saw a very small baby who was breech with possible brain defects, heart defects, a club foot, a decreasing blood flow to the baby and irregular heart rate. The umbilical artery flow had reversed and diastolic flow. She mentioned that these problems may be indicative of a genetic disorder, but we had no time for an amio to find out. Testing would have to wait until after Emily was born. We were totally unprepared for this news so we asked for a second opinion from another specialist in that practice who affirmed her findings.
After the initial sonogram, they monitored the baby for a few hours while giving me oxygen to see if there were any changes. On a follow up sonogram that afternoon, the baby's blood flow and heart rate had not improved. She started having significiant heart decelerations. The doctor told us that in this type of situation the baby needed to be born right away or we could expect that she would die within 48 hours.
I requested that the doctor try to deliver vaginally and she agreed to try. She broke my water and I was getting contractions strong enough to deliver - but the cord was prolapsed. Time for an emergency C-section! Read about Emily's birth. Click below.
