Reed's Story

On August 1st our beautiful, perfect, healthy newborn went unconscious and stopped breathing while nursing in my arms. Quick thinking of us and the Doctors had him back and breathing within 3 minutes. The longest 3 minutes of my life. Not knowing what caused the event the Doctors began running every test imaginable on our new little baby. A CT scan showed brain swelling and an EEG showed an abnormal neurological event. The extent of any damage done or what actually caused the event couldn't be known until after a 72 hour wait period. During the 72 hours Reed was placed on a cooling blanket which lowered his body temperature to 92 degrees. This allowed his body to slow down, rest and prayerfully decrease the swelling in his brain. With his body temperature only being 92 degrees all he had the energy for is to sleep; my prayer was that he would just sleep through this whole nightmare. After 36 hours the doctor preformed a repeat EEG and the results were a God send. On the first test Reed had many moments of no "background" which means there was no activity for a few seconds multiple times. On the repeat test he still had no "background" moments, but the number of times had decreased significantly. On Tuesday night at 11:30pm the warming process started, raising the machine temperature 1 degree every hour. As the hours went on our baby boy became more and more responsive. By the time the shift doctor made rounds for the day Reed was ready to graduate to a crib from his incubator and add milk to his diet. After working with an Occupational Therapist for just a few minutes Reed was ready to try a bottle; boy drank a full 10ml in less than 5 minutes. After he had a good feeding he made such a turn. He actually woke up, had a bowel movement, cried, and would make it clear when he was hungry or uncomfortable. Within 36 hours Reed was ready to discontinue all IV fluids and loose the feeding tube. Our strong little fighter was on all milk bottles just 60 hours after being warmed. His reflexes were taking a while to come around, but all of that is to be expected on a "cooled" baby.  6 days after the event Reed was seen by the pediatric neurologist and she did a few reflex exercises and determines that "there is nothing wrong with Reed, he's a healthy baby". Those magical words brought tears to my eyes. He will continue to follow up with her throughout his first year to make sure he's developing as he should, but she doesn't foresee any problems. With the okay from neuro and the straight bottle/nursing feeds our baby boy was ready to come home. The past 9 days were by far the worst days of my life, but GOD showed his power and got us through it. We thank everyone for all of their prayers, thoughts, and kind words. They have helped keep us strong throughout this unfortunate situation. More than anything though we hit our knees and praise the LORD. He has healed our miracle baby and given us the biggest blessing that we are forever grateful for. 

He's Here!!

Reed Benson arrived on July 31, 2015 at 12:54pm. He weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and measured 19 1/2 inches long.