It had been over a year since we posted anything here and I wanted to take some time and address, talk about and explain what all happened during the labor and delivery of our sweet boy and what caused him to be robbed of his good health. Everything was hard to talk about at first and to be honest we didn’t know, or couldn’t provide more information on all aspects of his care. Now, we have had a lot of time to research, and become much more knowledgeable about his conditions and just want to share with those of you who have wondered, exactly what happened to Asher. 

At 37 weeks, I was diagnosed with pre-ecalmpsia and was told to be at the hospital for induction later that day. At some point during the 32 hours of labor my placenta had ripped away from the uterus (concealed placental aburption) meaning Asher was not receiving an adequate amount of oxygen. An emergency C-Section was finally called, and when Asher was removed from the womb he had a pulse, his body was limp and he was unable to breathe on his own. He was immediately intubated and transferred to South Bend Memorial Hospital where his care would continue in their NICU. For the first 36 hours of his life, we were separated as I was not discharged from Elkhart General until noon(ish) The day after he was born. 

He was diagnosed with HIE (Neonatal Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy) which can be broken down into Hypoxic = body or body part not getting enough oxygen, Ischemic = Not enough blood flow, Encephalopathy = damage to the brain. The severity of his HIE was unknown for the first couple days until tests could be ran. After birth he was immediately intubated and placed into therapeutic hypothermia to reduce his body temperature in an attempt to reduce the amount of damage from the oxygen deprivation. 

After a few days and several tests it was determined the severity of Asher’s HIE was the worst it could be at stage 3, severe. Asher never improved, we had gotten our hopes up a little when the EEG showed increased brain activity. However it was determined the activity we were seeing was seizure activity and not any form of improvement. After hundreds of questions to Asher’s Neonatologist, he advised us he has been in this line of work for over 20 years and the likelihood of Asher improving after the 72 hour mark was slim to none. Asher could have lived, but never on his own. He was in a coma and would not have been able to live without constantly being attached to machines, doing all the work for him and keeping him alive. Asher would not have had a decent quality of life, IF he ever woke up his brain damage was so severe that he most likely endure constant seizures and fall back into his coma state. Knowing all of this, we chose to terminate Asher’s care. 

Asher lived for 52 hours after his care  was terminated, we got a precious 52 hours with him where he wasn’t hooked up to any machines, we got to hold him, cuddle him, read to him, bathe him, take him outside and just love on him before he took his final breath.

Alek and I continue to navigate our way thru this grief every day. We both get told all too often how people don’t know what to say and don’t want to make our day worse by talking or asking about Asher. I would like to say, please don’t EVER feel afraid to ask! There is not a day that goes by where we don’t think of our son, honestly probably not even an hour. You aren’t going to ruin our day by talking about him, say his name, he was alive, he was here, so talk about him. If you have any questions, let us know, we are happy to answer them.