Pete and Aprille:
Serenity, courage and Godspeed. Thanks for sharing.
--
Martin Secrest
Pete & Aprille Chadwell wrote:
> I'd like to announce and share an extremely special Thanksgiving
>
> In March of this year my wife and I took a huge step toward starting
> a family. She became pregnant after 7 months of trying. Her due
> date was to be November 22nd.
>
> Now that the background is established, I must continue this note
> with bad news, but I will bring it around full circle and you will
> understand why this Thanksgiving is so special and why my wife
> Aprille and I have so much to be thankful for.
>
> About 9 weeks ago we were given some incredibly awful news that came
> as the result of ultrasound testing and an amniocentesis performed at
> Doernbecher's Children's Hospital's perinatology center in Portland,
> Oregon. The testing revealed that our son-to-be had a chromosomal
> anomaly known as trisomy 13 or Patau's Syndrome, which is an extra
> copy of the 13th chromosome. This condition, we were told, typically
> results in a stillbirth or perhaps demise within hours or days of
> birth, as there are a number of very serious abnormalities, some
> involving the baby's heart. Obviously this was a tremendous shock to
> both of us. We were told that she needed to carry the baby to full
> term.
>
> Well, after a couple of months of preparing in whatever way you can
> prepare for something like this, we went to St. Charles Medical
> Center here in Bend, Oregon on Monday the 20th of November to induce
> labor. After 9 hours of labor and at 5:45 pm Monday evening, Conner
> William Chadwell was born, and he took his first breath and cried and
> we all breathed a sigh of relief that he survived birth. Tuesday at
> around 1:00 we took him home and today, the day after Thanksgiving,
> we have much to be thankful for
> Conner is still with us and appears
> to be doing fairly well. There are some deformities, including a
> "bilateral" cleft palate, an extra digit (pinky) on the right hand
> (polydactyly) and on the left hand the pinky is really two digits
> joined together. (syndactyly) The feet have the proper number of
> digits, but there are some structural abnormalities in the ankles and
> perhaps lower legs.
>
> There is a long list of problems we know about, both externally and
> internally, and perhaps a longer list of things we don't know about.
> But regardless, Conner is alive today and so for that we are
> extremely grateful, as well as for the fact that we have been blessed
> with these days with Conner when it was possible, in fact PROBABLE,
> that goodbye would have been Monday at 5:45.
>
> We still do not expect Conner to live for very long, but no one is
> able to tell how long that will be. Could be days, could be weeks,
> could even be a few months. But cases of trisomy 13 where the child
> survives beyond a week or so are really quite rare. So we are making
> the most of this time with him and as I said, it is quite appropriate
> that we celebrated Thanksgiving with much enthusiasm, given what
> could have happened.
>
> I know this seems like awful news, but we have learned to look at the
> positives over the last two months and our spirits are nevertheless
> quite good. I should add that this event was a genetic fluke and
> that there is no reason that Aprille and I can't try again to start a
> family whenever we are ready, assuming that what the doctors expect
> to happen happens.
>
> --
> Pete & Aprille Chadwell
> Dynamic Arts
> (541) 317-5751
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