A Mother's Heartwrenching Tale from NICU to LeBonheur

March 1, 2006 due to circumstances out of my control my youngest son Matthew Lee Ryan Davis was born five and one half weeks premature after having labor stopped twice during a two week period due to stress and high blood pressure. The day started with me waking up at four am spotting and waking my friend, who had stayed the night with me and my oldest son, up and telling her that we needed to go to the hospital. My parents were in Europe and my husband, at the time, was unavailable. We arrived at the hospital around six am after slowly getting ready and picking up my friend’s husband along with making the many phone calls involved with going into labor. When we arrived they immediately took me to labor and delivery and informed me that my little boy would not be able to hang on inside until his due date.

That was the scariest and loneliest day of my life. Yes I had my friends around me along with my older son, Tyler, and my brother, Hank, but I did not have my parents or my husband by my side. My blood pressure was high so they gave me medicine for that but also had to give me labor inducing drugs because the medication to lower my blood pressure was also stopping my labor and Matthew was ready to join us. We spent the day in labor and delivery waiting for my body to realize that my little bundle of joy wanted to make his appearance. Around seven pm the OBGYN said that there was no time to wait because Matthew’s heart rate was dropping. I looked at my brother and before I could ask he said that he would be glad to accompany me into the operating room for the cesarean section. Matthew was delivered at seven twenty-five pm.

I called my mother the next day crying because we had tried every formula possible and he would not keep it down. She told me that I would just have to nurse him, at the time I did not think that I was the type of woman that would “enjoy” that part of motherhood. I had not nursed my oldest and I did not want to nurse Matthew. I finally agreed and we finally managed to get him to nurse and he actually did well with my milk. Everything was fine until he was three days old. We were getting ready to head up to the pediatric ward because he was jaundice and we never made it. While the nurse was in there getting his vitals he stopped breathing and she jerked him out of my arms and ran down the hallway.

The next nineteen days were some of the worst days of my life. My precious perfect little boy was in a battle for his life. They took him into NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and found many things wrong with him. He had low blood sugar, an infection in his body somewhere they could not find and many more problems. My parents returned from Germany the day after he was taken into the NICU and my father stayed by my side the entire time. We went from him being on oxygen to have IVs in different places all over his body, from his foot to his head. I could not hold my baby for two weeks while he was taking one step forward to take two steps back. Finally on day fifteen he began to make a drastic improvement and I was able to hold him and my parents were allowed to hold their grandson for the first time. We were told to take him home that he was going to be fine.

At six months old my brother and his wife told me that they thought he had a lazy eye. I asked his pediatrician about it at his six month check up and was referred to a series of doctors from Ophthalmologists to Neurologists. We ended up in Jackson, MS at the University Medical Center where he was given an MRI. They found that my son had brain damage with no explanation of why. At this point I was a single mother of two children and was told that my miracle would never do anything besides sit up if we sat him up and balanced him first.

I would not take that for an answer and demanded for him to have all the therapy that he could have. He has been getting speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy ever since. The boy they said would never crawl is crawling all over the place. At the age of three he is extremely behind his peers in that he is not walking or talking.

In the meantime he began to have seizures and was started on seizure medication. We were referred to a Pediatric Neurologist in Hattiesburg, MS when his doctor left UMC. We saw her for a few visits but when his seizures began to increase even after she put him on all the medications she could she referred us to another doctor. We live in the southern part of south Mississippi and this new specialist was located in Memphis, Tennessee. My father and I took him to LeBonheur. We were at LeBonheur for a week while he underwent a series of tests. We were finally told the cause of his brain damage. My precious angel had a stroke at three days old, the day he stopped breathing in the hospital and was taken out of my arms.

Even though Matthew has many disabilities including Cortical Vision Impairment (he can see but not process what he sees all the time), Ocular Motor Apraxia (his eyes won’t always move on their own), seizure disorder (he has started having them where he stops breathing), major brain damage in the left side of his brain and occipital lobe (the back), minor brain damage in the right side of his brain, he is a very determined child. His step father, all his grandparents, aunts, uncles, brother and myself are determined that he get the care that he needs. He has progressed passed all the doctors’ expectations and is improving all the time.

Through all of this I have found the time to actually finish writing and publish one book Force Recon: Eagle and am in the process of getting another one Paul’s Teacher published. His older brother is on AB honor roll and his step father is in college doing very well getting his degree in Construction Management. We remind ourselves everyday that God is in control and that we are only human and cannot predict the future. If you want to know more please check out the websites of Matthew (www.mattman1.com) or me (www.glendadavis.com).