MAMA Campaign March 2021: Meet MAMA Rebekah

We had been trying to have a baby for a quite a few months and we were so excited when we found we were pregnant in February 2020. Unfortunately I had a miscarriage soon after leaving us completely devastated. A couple months past and we were over joyed when we found ourselves pregnant with our rainbow baby. The pregnancy was anything but easy, I was in and out of the hospital with extreme “morning sickness” (hyperemesis gravidarum) and had a couple infections that landed me with hospital stays.

I had many ultrasounds due to a previous complicated pregnancy but was always told “baby looks perfect.”

Around 7:00am on December 14th, 2020 I gave birth to Rosie, she didn’t cry when she was born and was immediately taken from me. They called in other doctors to look at her and after finally getting her to cry and examining her they handed her to me for only a few short minutes as they listed off all kinds of issues she had before whisking her away to the NICU.

The days to follow were difficult for our baby had the following: cleft palate, 2 heart defects, issues with feeding causing the need for an NG tube, failure to thrive, cataracts in both eyes, poor muscle tone, physical deformities and talk of a possible unknown syndrome.

We were in love with our little Rosie but felt completely devastated for what she was facing. We luckily learned how to use the NG tube and were able to take her home from CHEO just before Christmas.

Just after being home for only 3 weeks Rosie started throwing up so we took her back to CHEO to see what was going on, turns out her bowel was twisted. This was something she was born with that we didn’t know about and she needed emergency surgery. This followed with her not recovering from that surgery and her being opened up again in less than 24 hours and being told that they may have to just close her back up if they couldn’t repair her.

We prayed harder than we ever had that night that God would heal our little girl and bring her through. Our prayers were answered when the surgeon informed us that they had found a hernia pushing on her bowel that they hadn’t seen when they first went in, luckily it was a simple repair. Three days later they opened her again and resected a bruised part of her bowel which they believed was caused from one of the previous surgeries. This was also causing her not to recover previously.

So after 3 emergency bowel surgeries in 4 days she FINALLY started to recover. Due to Rosie having a cleft palate feeding orally was already a challenge so now with all the stress from surgeries on her bowel it made feeding orally even harder and even feeding through the NG tube not possible for a while. We spent 5 weeks in CHEO some of which was in the PICU. Most of our hospital stay was during the lockdown and only one parent could be there at a time. Meaning my hubby and I spent less than 30 minutes a day together.

During that 5 weeks she also had her scheduled cataract surgery on both eyes. But after that and finally once she started gaining weight we were able to go home!

We still have quite the journey ahead of us, filled with appointments and future surgeries. But we are just happy that she’s growing and thriving at home with us and her big sister Savannah.

Rosie has changed our lives and touched so many people. Her story has reached all over the world as so many have been praying for her.

Rosie truly is our little miracle! Right now we are preparing for a cath procedure for pulmonary valve stenosis on March 3rd. We cannot wait to get this heart procedure behind us and bring her home again!