My son, Oliver was due on 6/11/15. Our pregnancy got complicated around 18 weeks, when the amniotic banding was first detected in an ultrasound. From then on, my husband and I were warned to be prepared for our son to be born with a missing limb and the fact that my amniotic sac had been “weakened” so my water could break at any time starting at 18 weeks.
We went to weekly or biweekly ultrasounds and they tried to monitor where the banding was, as it could be seen floating around. When we hit 24 weeks, I breathed a small sigh of relief as we had reached viability! I kept telling myself to just focus on one week at a time. I knew I would have him early so I planned for it as much as I could. We chose a hospital with a wonderful NICU and had our baby shower very early, on 3-28-15.
On 4-7-15, I got an extremely bad headache and told my husband we needed to go to the hospital so I could be checked out. We arrived at the hospital at 6:30pm and up until about 9:15, they tried to find a vein to get blood. Eventually life flight nurse was able to get it and I was rushed to emergency c-section (I was 30 weeks 5 days pregnant). They diagnosed me with severe pre-eclampsia. At 10:01pm, Oliver was born and taken straight to the NICU where he spent the first 78 days of his life. He also had IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction) and only weighed 2lbs 8oz. We were/are extremely blessed as our son has a very mild case of ABS. His right middle finger had the top (fingernail) amputated and his left has minor banding causing it to be slightly smaller, syndactyly and he has a couple constriction bands.
He has surgery on the 18th to correct the syndactyly and use z-plasty on the constriction bands. We are so blessed and I could not love my little miracle baby any more. He is our whole world.
Oliver had surgery on May 18, 2016 to correct his syndactyly and release his bands. He has some scaring obviously, but is adapting well to using his hand! We have to go back on 8/2017 for x-rays and to meet with the surgeon to see if he will need additional surgery.