Wesley's Birth Story - Part 3

Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

I remember holding Wesley after he was finally handed to me and thinking that he was perfect.  After all the difficulty Zach had learning to nurse, I was amazed when Wesley latched on right away and had what I thought at the time was a perfect nursing session.  I will always treasure those moments of looking down at Wesley's adorable face, admiring his every feature, and enjoying the bond a mother has with her nursing child.  The Lord in His kindness saw fit to bless me with this experience, and I am thankful I didn't know at the time that this would be his one and only time to nurse successfully. Those first minutes with Wesley were glorious.  Mike and I rejoiced that God had answered our prayers and that nursing seemed to come naturally to Wesley.  We thanked God for giving us a healthy baby and for protecting Wesley through the labor and delivery. He was so fair and chubby - the differences between him and Zach were night and day - and we joked that he would be our big, strong, tough boy who would learn to stand up to his big brother.

I am grateful that the Lord gave us such a sweet time with Wesley when he was first born, because the next few days in the hospital were very stressful.  After nursing somewhat successfully right after his birth, Wesley then became uninterested in nursing or taking a bottle, and his jaundice kept increasing.  I worked to no avail with him every few hours, trying to get him to nurse.  Then I would pump and we would attempt to give him a bottle.  We had one wonderful nurse who was able to get him to take a bit of milk from one of the many bottles that we tried, but the rest of us failed miserably.  To add to this, he kept choking, gagging, and spitting up mucous, and his chest and neck retracted with every breath he took.

After we brought him home, his feeding and his breathing seemed to grow more difficult.  I remember the process that we repeated every three hours - attempt unsuccessfully to nurse for 30 minutes, pump, give bottle to Wesley.  We should have realized right away that Wesley would never nurse, given that it took him 30 minutes to choke his way through two ounces from a bottle.  But how were we supposed to know?  Doesn't every child figure these things out?

Then the doctor's appointments began.  Because of his jaundice, I was bringing Wesley in to the hospital every other day for blood work.  Family history dictated that we take him to a cardiologist to rule out any heart defects.  We also had many trips to specialists trying to identify why he was struggling so much to breathe.  Finally a pulmonologist identified that it was related to his larynx collapsing over his airway and sent us to a second otolaryngologist to look into the issue further.  All of these appointments were in between frequent trips to the hospital to meet with the lactation consultants there.

During these weeks, I remember looking at Wesley and noticing little things about him that reminded me of my sister (who has the same diagnosis).  None of them were particularly concerning or unusual.  It just seemed more than coincidental that he would have such random similarities with her.  For example, both of them tended to overlap their second toes over their big toes when they were babies.  As well, both of them had short necks with lots of rolls of skin.  This was particularly noticeable because both of them spit up everywhere and it was difficult to clean their necks thoroughly.  Truthfully, none of these things were unusually abnormal, and they were so small that no one else would have noticed.  But there is just something about a mother's intuition.  As I began to notice these things, I KNEW.

At the time I was not aware of exactly what Wesley's diagnosis might be, so I Googled "Trisomy 4p" to see what the symptoms are.  My eyes filled with tears as I read that commonly, "affected infants may have feeding and breathing difficulties".  It was as if this was the confirmation that the similarities I was seeing between Wesley and my sister were not just coincidental.

I will never forget the first time I verbalized my concerns to one of my friends.  She had come over to pick something up, and as I shared my concerns about Wesley's health with her, she looked into my eyes with such love and care as she asked me if I was worried about the similarities I was seeing. After pouring out my heart to her, she gently reminded me of God's love for Wesley and His faithfulness to our family.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."  Lamentations 3:21-24

Click here to read Part 4 and Part 5.