April 4th, 2004 

 

Hello to all our family and friends,

We want to thank everyone for your thoughtful words of encouragement, your cards, gifts and all your concern and support over the last few days.

 

We’ve decided to re-send the birth announcement of our son, Payton Thomas because many of you never received the first one we sent through our Yahoo account. That being said, we would like to try to clarify some of what happened in the delivery process.

 

We came to the hospital Wednesday, March 31^st at 2pm to induce labor. They did an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid around the baby and a fetal stress test to be sure everything was ok earlier in the morning before the inducing process took place.   We were told that everything was just fine, the amniotic fluid was on the low side which reassured our decision to be induced besides going past our due date, but overall, the baby’s heart was “pumping like a race horse” and he’s ready to come into this world.  The entire pregnancy was the same way, good news all the way and his heart was beating very strong at every appointment.

 

At 3:15pm they administered Pictocin, a drug that induces labor.  At 3:35pm Payton’s heart was pumping at 145 bpm, which is very good for a newborn.  At 3:40pm the contractions were coming every four minutes and the doctor decided to break the water bag. She broke the bag and some blood began to flow onto the bed. The doctor said it’s not uncommon to have a little blood when you break the bag but, the blood began to flow profusely and she became quite concerned. Heather and the baby were hemorrhaging internally. The doctor tried checking for the baby’s heartbeat and think I saw 77 on the monitor, she yelled to the nurses station “I can’t find a heartbeat.” She called for more doctors and ordered the operating room to prepare for an immediate Stat C-Section delivery. 

 

Payton was delivered 17 minutes later at 3:57pm with no heartbeat and they say he lost 2/3rds of his blood. We’ll spare you the details of everything that happened in the operating room, but approximately 28 minutes after delivery “Little Payton the Warrior” was resuscitated back to life and has been doing amazingly well ever since. While we are optimistic Payton will make a complete recovery, we need to be realistic about the trauma his little body went through. He has been fighting every step of the way.

 

The medical terminology of what happened to us is Vasa Previa. The odds of it happening are 1/3000 deliveries. The survival rate of babies delivered under this condition is less then 5%. The odds of it happening to us again are 1/3000. There are no tests to detect if pregnant women have it or not.

 

The doctors have told us Vasa Previa is the worst thing that can happen in delivery because you go from a perfectly healthy pregnancy to full blown life and death situation for mother and baby in a matter of seconds.

 

Regarding visitation of Payton: Unfortunately only parents and grandparents are allowed in the ISCU of Evanston Northwestern Hospital.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Vasa Previa you can click on this link: Vasa Previa International

 

If you’d like to read similar stories to ours and see what other children’s longer-term outcomes have transpired, you can click on this link: Personal Stories

 

If you’d like to see photos of our boy, click on this link:  Payton

 

Check back periodically for more pictures and updates.

 

Thanks again for all your love and support.  Please keep Payton in your thoughts and prayers, he still has a long recovery ahead of him.

 

~Tom, Heather & Payton Borst