Friday, January 1, 2010

My Son Tyler

Well, it's New Years day today and this is my first blog ever.

My topics are going to be on Infant Loss because I am a Mother who lost a baby when he was only 7 weeks old. I am not an expert on Grief by any means, I'm just a Mother who has traveled the journey of Grief and have come out the other side. It has been almost 4 years since he died and I absolutely love talking about him. He was my first born, and my only son.


We named him Tyler.











I found out about Tyler's heart condition when I was 18 weeks pregnant. It came as a shock when my Midwife called me up to give me the Ultrasound report and asked that my husband Jason pick up a phone as well. We got the news together. Tyler had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) The simple explanation is that he only developed a Right side of the heart and not a Left side. The sad thing was that the Left side was not going to grow as my pregnancy continued. We were given 4 options.

1) Terminate the Pregnancy
2) Go full term, give birth then take him home and watch him die
3) Heart Transplant
4) Or 3 stage Surgery option

We chose surgery..
Tyler had his first open heart surgery done when he was only 5 days old at Sick Kids Hospital. We remained vigil at his side daily. There was many ups and downs and we were always waiting for the next shoe to drop but he made it through. After 4 weeks of being in the hospital he was allowed to go home. His next surgery was supposed to be when he was 6 months old.
He never made it that far.


We had 3 weeks with him at home. I took him shopping, he got to see family, he smiled, for all intense purposes he was a happy baby. He did have some feeding issues and required daily medication regardless to say that needles and NG tubes became a part of our routine.
At exactly 7 weeks, a Saturday morning I will relive again and again. My son Tyler stopped breathing in my arms.

911 was called but there was nothing anyone could do, he was gone.

My baby boy Tyler, I will hold you in my heart forever............

Your Mommy,
Michelle

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