Emmett’s Story

Site created on July 16, 2020

Emmett was born at 9:38 pm on Saturday July 11th 2020, at St Joe's Hospital. He was 7 pounds 5 ounces and 21 inches long, and almost 3 weeks early! Holly was induced Friday at 11 am due to her blood pressure spiking. After a long labor, Emmett's heart rate was steadily rising and showing signs of distress. Holly's doctor was on vacation in Shelton and drove in to be there for delivery! She arrived at 8 pm and very quickly made the call that the baby was stressed and Holly needed to be prepped for a c-section delivery.


At Holly's 20 week anatomy scan, it was discovered that Emmett's heart was on the right side of his body. After an echocardiogram done by Seattle Children's and multiple follow up 3D ultrasounds, it was believed that Emmett's heart was simply in the wrong location. Chuck and Holly were told there was a possibility that the right lung was underdeveloped, but the baby should quickly figure out how to compensate. Thankfully, due to the prenatal diagnosis, a NICU doctor and two NICU nurses were in the OR at time of delivery, just in case. Emmett let out a few cries when he was lifted out, but then quickly began to deteriorate. The NICU team worked on him, helping him breath while they took an x-ray of his chest. The chest x-ray revealed Emmett was born with left-sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), which means he had a hole in his diaphragm that allowed some of his lower organs to creep up into his chest cavity, restricting his lung growth and pushing his heart to the right side. He was immediately prepared for transport to Seattle Children's Hospital as they are one of the only hospitals in Washington State equipped to handle a CDH case. The transport team rushed Emmett to Children's, with Chuck following close behind, so Emmett was never alone his first night. 


The team at Children's stabilized Emmett upon arrival, and began to formulate a plan for surgery. When Emmett was three days old, his team of doctors decided it was time to operate. They had purposely waited in order to observe, gather information and consult the various specialties making sure Emmett was as safe as possible before proceeding.


Emmett’s surgeons made a small incision under his rib cage, moved his bowels, spleen and half his stomach (his stomach had just started to move into his chest in the last two days!) back to where they belong, and repaired the hernia with his own muscle tissue. Emmett did beautifully the whole time! Now little Emmett is on the road to recovery!

Newest Update

June 28, 2021

Journal entry by Justin Maul —

Happy Summer! 
Emmett is beating the heat in our backyard pool and visiting the beach. He loves the water!!! He says “ball” and “Da-Da” and loves his pets. We are finally getting to a place we’re we don’t go to a doctor’s appointment every other week and we are loving it!  

We have a special prayer request for you all. Your prayers have been so powerful for us and lifted us up in the dark days of our journey and we know a family that needs them right now. A family in our CDH community have a little guy that is fighting very hard for his life right now. His name is Luca and he is just 9 days old. His mom, Melissa found us on social media when they got Luca’s CDH diagnosis at her 20 week fetal scan. We have become friends and she says seeing Emmett’s smiling face has given her so much hope these last couple of months. Luca is currently on ECMO, lung and heart bypass, which is keeping him alive right now so he can try to get stable enough for his repair surgery. I told Melissa I would put Emmett’s prayer tribe on it and that your prayers are very powerful so please, please  hold them in your hearts and prayers. Special prayers that he can come off ECMO soon, as the longer he is on it the greater the risks become, and that he can become stable enough for surgery. ❤️👊🏼🙏🏼

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