Little Bee and Me

By the time we got to the hospital, I was already at 7 cm. My midwife thought we would be in and out of the hospital, going home with a healthy baby within a few hours. The hours passed, and by 6 PM, my water had broken but I was still at 7 cm. At that point, I decided to get an epidural, and my midwife had to get the OB team involved because baby was showing signs of distress: his heart rate dropping and not recovering well with each contraction. I don’t want to get into the details of the labour and delivery; quite frankly it was traumatic for me and us. By the time baby Beckett was born, at 2:52 AM on May 25, there were two OBs, one resident, two or three labour and delivery nurses, a full respiratory/resuscitation team, and my midwife (looking concerned) all crammed in the room. Beckett was breathing on his own, but he did not cry and was not moving much. I heard someone (maybe my midwife?) suggest skin to skin time with mom and baby and someone came and put Becket on my chest. He ...

I ’ve been thinking a lot about where to start. I think jumping right to the day Beckett was born wouldn’t be the right decision, as his story is bigger than just his birth. Instead I’d like to start in the summer of 2022. Keith and I had decided that we wanted to start trying to have a baby. We found out we were pregnant in June 2022, and quickly felt all the feels of excitement, love, joy, and fear. We shared the news with our families. Unfortunately we had a miscarriage early on, on July 1. That was a difficult experience. I’ve heard some people suggest that to have a loss so early on doesn’t really “count”. But, the joy, excitement, and love that we felt after finding out we were pregnant was real; the emotional pain that followed so shortly after was just as real. For Keith and I, it reinforced the fact that we were ready to start our family, and that we wanted to continue to try until it happened. Luckily for us, that didn’t take long, and we were pregnant again in September 2022...

This blog is intended to provide information and updates on Beckett’s (and our) journey with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and Currarino’s Syndrome and how we are doing as a family of three. More than that, it is a way for us, Beckett’s parents, to share and process what we’ve been through as a family. Honest feelings and emotions will be shared. We think and hope that it will be therapeutic in some ways for us, and perhaps for others. Originally, we wanted to start a blog as a way to keep family and close friends up to date, but have decided to allow the site to be public. Maybe it will bring someone going through a similar situation some comfort in the future. Feel free to share the site or my contact info with others you may know going through something similar, if it might bring them comfort. I guess it's probably also worth noting that we often call Beckett "Little Bee", hence the name of the blog!  This blog is written by Mom (Chantale). It is edited and rev...