When a blood pressure complication put Stephanie and her 26-week son Dominic at risk, Children’s came to the rescue.
Medications kept Stephanie and Dominic safe for a few weeks – until one Thursday night. At 29 weeks, severe pain caused a sleepless night for Stephanie.
Something was wrong.
After rushing into the Woodstock Emergency Room, Stephanie found out her kidneys were failing. Woodstock immediately started Stephanie on steroid shots to help Dominic’s lung development and magnesium to help keep her from having seizures or strokes. They then raced to world-class Women’s and NICU care at Children’s Hospital at LHSC.
While laboring in London, Dominic’s heart kept stopping during contractions. It was time for an emergency c-section.
On December 11, Dominic was born at 8:36 a.m. weighing just two pounds, 13 ounces – not crying, not breathing.
His Children’s Hospital team jumped into action. Dominic’s team was all hands-on-deck. 
While Dominic was in respiratory distress, thankfully Children’s had the vital equipment they needed to keep him breathing. Thanks to donor funding, his team could connect him to the Jet Ventilators and provide him with the high-flow oxygen start him on phototherapy to getting rid of excess bilirubin – which allows their livers to function properly again. Even feeding was difficult for Dominic as at just 35 weeks he needed a feeding tube.
Your gifts to Children’s Health Foundation help put the tools into Children’s Hospital care providers expert hands to save children like Dominic.
Stephanie recalls, “The ups and downs are the most difficult part. You just never knew what to expect every day. When your life is sitting bedside with your baby in the hospital, it becomes so hard to relate to your friends. It was a very lonely time because not many other people, other than my direct family, knew what it was like to be here. And my husband was back and forth depending on his work.” 
A special part of Children’s care is that donors help support both little babies like Dominic and their families. While Dominic continued to grow stronger thanks to donor-funded equipment, Stephanie benefited from the kindness of frontline staff and Children’s compassionate care.
“Although she’s retired, we’ll never forget our favourite nurse. Her name was Jean. She was Dominic’s primary nurse for about half of his stay partway through, like when he moved to A pod – where you’re more stable and off most breathing systems. She really helped our journey. She was really good at reading how I was feeling and telling me that it was okay to feel stressed. She actually convinced me to go home for a night during the Super Bowl. The big game is such a huge deal for our family, and Jean just said, ‘Go home. Go take care of yourself. We’ll look after him.’ I could just see the care in her eyes for the baby. You can tell all Children’s nurses are meant for this job. In the NICU they take all the extra time to just hold babies’ hands or snuggle them – that extra time to give them lots of love,” shares Stephanie. 
After 58 days of growing stronger, and coming off all the machines he needed, seven-pound Dominic was finally able to make his way home with his grateful parents.
As he grows up Dominic’s favourite thing is being scared, chuckles Stephanie, “His dad loves horror movies. If you jump out from a wall and scare Dominic, he thinks it’s the funniest thing ever and the bigger we jump, the more he laughs.”
Now Dominic is a strong, goofy little boy – who turns seven years old today!
This holiday season, you can help ensure that children like Dominic celebrate more birthdays! When you make a gift to Children’s Health Foundation, you’ll have double the impact! Thanks to the Charabin Family Match, a gift of $50 becomes $100, and a gift of $100 becomes $200. You can help ensure hope lives at Children’s Hospital for children like Dominic – what an incredible birthday gift that would be!
