We were privileged that Katie shared her memories of Adam with us, and wanted to share his story with the First Touch community. Each baby’s story is unique to them and their families, and we say their names in our hearts and out loud!
This is what Katie had to say:
After a little help my husband and I had a daughter, Hannah so we were very surprised to find I was pregnant a year later but also overjoyed to extend our family.
At the 20 week scan we were told we were having a son but that they were having trouble completing some of the checks because he wouldn’t keep still. We thought nothing of this but a week later when we returned we were quite quickly told that something wasn’t right and we would be referred to St Georges hospital.
We spent an agonising day having scans and waiting to hear what was wrong with our son. We were told that Adam had CDH (Congenital Diaphragmatic hernia), it wasn’t something we had ever heard of before. It was explained to us that the diaphragm is a sheet of muscle that keeps the heart and lungs separate from the liver and intestines. There was a hole in Adam’s diaphragm which meant his liver had gone up into his chest cavity and had pushed his lungs and heart to one side meaning that the lungs had very little space to grow and develop.
We were told Adam had a 50:50 chance of survival and were offered a termination. Due to being over 22 weeks, I had very little time to decide and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Adam.
The remainder of the pregnancy was torture, we had several scans and visits to the hospital, repeatedly being told the same news over and over again. We felt like we were in limbo and that our lives were on hold, I personally felt numb most of the time.
I was induced on the 27th March and Adam was born at 7:20am on the 28th March 2018. He was immediately taken into specialist care. It was incredibly difficult seeing him in the incubator covered in tubes and surrounded by machines. My husband and I tried to get some sleep at the hospital but were woken to be told that Adam didn’t have much time left.
On Thursday 29th March 2018, at just 19 hours old Adam died in my arms. I will never forget how warm he felt and he was so beautiful.
I think about Adam every single day and we have an orb with his ashes inside in our garden so that we can feel close to him.
We will never forget the care and the compassion from the neonatal unit and First Touch charity at St George’s.
