Lydia Banfe

Dear friends and family,
First of all, we want to sincerely thank you for the kindness that you have shown to us and to our daughter, Lydia. The prayers, the phone calls, the gifts and the visits have meant the world to us! The Lord has used the love of His people to strengthen us during this time.

We would also like to give a brief summary of everything that happened with Lydia from the beginning... Monday, December 21, we had an ultrasound scheduled because she was one week and five days past her due date. She received a score of 2 out of 8 because she did not move during the test. We went to the hospital around 5:00pm to be induced. Lydia had a steady heart rate but without much variance. As the contractions became stronger, her heart rate started dropping and the doctor decided to do an emergency c-section. They had Lydia out within a matter of minutes. She wasn't breathing and she didn't have a heart beat, so they had to put a tube in her and they did compressions on her for thirteen minutes. They rushed her to the NICU and put her on the cooling blanket immediately to reduce any inflammation to her brain. She was having seizures every hour and every time she had a seizure she stopped breathing. They had her on three different medicines but the seizures were not stopping so they had to put her on a heavier medicine that put her into an induced coma for a few days. Thursday night, she came off of the cooling blanket and on Saturday she came off of the ventilator. They slowly took her off of the heavier medicine and began to wake her up. She handled it well and the EEG showed no increase in seizure activity. By Monday, December 28, she was completely off of the heavy medicine and they unhooked her from the EEG and took her to have an MRI. The MRI showed severe brain damage on both sides of the brain and a lot of swelling. The brain stem is in tact, which is the important thing. The doctor said that we are looking at a future of cerebral palsy and mental retardation, but there is no way to know the extent of it until she grows up. We will have to take it day by day and see how she develops. Lydia is now only on two seizure medicines. She is off the EEG and her IV has been taken out. She is eating the full amount of milk that a baby her size should be eating. She is much more aware, awake and even fussy! She responds to touch and it seems like she can see and hear. She is regulating her own body temperature and having regular dirty diapers like they want her to have. She loves her pacifier and the speech therapist said that she is swallowing just fine. Tomorrow, the therapist is going to work with Jackie on feeding her. Depending on how well Lydia does with eating, she may get to go home soon. The Lord has answered prayers and she has improved so much that we feel like she is a completely different baby! She will eventually have a follow up MRI to see what parts of her brain have healed. Please continue to pray that whatever happens with Lydia, that she would be used to glorify the Lord in her life.