Parents: Trisha and Charles
Hometown: Manitoba, Canada
Induced at 34 weeks, lived several minutes
David’s Story
Although their baby had a lot of signs of having Trisomy 18, Trisha’s doctor did not tell her he suspected Trisomy 18. However, it seemed evident that he suspected something was wrong since he encouraged them to terminate without clearly stating why. Charles and Trisha relocated during the pregnancy, and there they found another OB who saw the signs and sent her to a fetal assessment unit right away where they diagnosed the Trisomy 18. At that time, she was 32 weeks along.
Trisha phoned her mother on the way home from the fetal assessment unit and told her that her son David had Trisomy 18. Her mother then told the rest of the family. Trisha also told one friend who passed the news on to her other friends for her.
They carried David to 34 weeks. Trisha writes, “I decided that because I was told by that time the lungs are developed and I wanted to be able to give him a chance, but knew that we would not be able to carry to 40 weeks. I had really high blood pressure that was getting worse and they weren’t sure that he would survive much longer if we didn’t induce. It was important to me to see him alive even if it was only for a moment. And truthfully I don’t think I could have made it the other 6 weeks, mentally or emotionally. We prayed a lot and came to the decision to induce as well as getting recommendations from my OB that I do induce.”
“I was heavily medicated during this time so I only remember pieces of the birth story. I was induced in the morning of January 29. I had a very long labor and gave birth at 10:10pm on the 30th. The only thing that I vividly remember from his birth is that right after he was born I was expecting him to look horrible. I was scared to look at him cause they had me prepared for the worst. But the moment I saw him the first thing I said was ‘look at him, he’s perfect!’ and I held him for quite a while.”
“We decided to do comfort care only. David had a very severe heart defect and they told me that they didn’t even expect him to make it through birth and if he did he’d only have hours to live. We didn’t want to put him through surgeries that we didn’t even know if he would make it out of and there really wasn’t anything they could do to help him. I wanted him to be in as little pain as possible.”
Trisha wrote this poem and read it at David’s funeral:
”David I love you, I miss you my son,
You were the most beautiful baby ever, the most precious one.
All the pain and the sorrow was worth it just to see your face.
We are so happy that you are now surrounded by God’s loving grace.
Although I can’t see you and we feel so far apart.
Know that I’ll never forget you, I’ll always hold you in my heart.
And when I see you in Heaven I’ll run to you my son.
My baby, My Angel, the most precious one.
Love mommy”
”I gave birth to my daughter Emily on January 07, 2004. Emily is healthy, but it was hard going through another pregnancy because we didn’t want all the tests that they did for David, so we decided only on an AFP and Ultrasound. They both came back normal. I was amazed that you could have a healthy baby after one that was so sick.”
“I’m thankful for the time I had with him, for the love I feel for him, that he is not in pain and that he was one of the most wonderful gifts that I was ever given. I never knew you could love someone so much that you just met.”