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TrachKid Profile

My husband and I were working at a Children's Home in Mexico, I had lived there since I was two. We had three little girls in our care, one of them I had raised since she was 5 and we were adopting her. We found out that I was pregnant and then the following day I found out it was twins. I was NOT excited at all! I loved my life and I loved being able to take care of little girls and I knew that with two babies it would be hard to do what I did.
Anyway, I had had no problems during my pregnancy and at a normal check up the doctor discovered that I was already dilating at 25 weeks. Brian, my husband was visiting his family here in TN. The doctor told me that legally he couldn't tell me to get on a plane and travel to the US, but that if I didn't the babies would be born in Mexico and there would be nothing that anyone could do for them. So I started traveling! Two days after that I landed in Nashville at 5 in the afternoon, and by midnight I had two tiny little boys. I had no clue what the road ahead would look like.
We had some horrible-crazy-scary days, but we were so thankful to have a chance to fight. My life is forever changed.
Jesse was born at 1lb. 5oz, he had some very scary days but overall did very well. Levi on the other hand has been a different story. He had a PDA that closed, then got MRSA staff infection(both the boys got it) and it made his PDA re-open. Had to be transfered to a different hospital to have the surgery. After the surgery he 'crashed' and had to be on the jet ventilator on 100% oxygen for several days. That lead to a pnumaticile (it's like a bubble in his lung), didn't think it was a problem until he self extibated. He was having a really hard time breathing because of the bubble in his lung but when they tried to put the ventilator tube back in, his airway was really swollen. Getting in back in caused a lot of trauma. That same day he got his trach.
We had to have ROP surgery on both the boys, Levi needed it twice on his left eye. After 113 days we left the hospital with both our boys, we were thrilled!
We had been staying at my in-laws house but when we found out that Levi was going to need his trach longer than we had hoped for, we decided to buy a house. We went back again a few months later to have it re-checked and got really bad news. The doctor said that Levi would have to be 3 or 4 years old before he could have a surgery to remove the scar tissue.
The hardest part about him having a trach is that we can't go home until he gets that out. And although I am very grateful for the care that we receive here in the United States, I miss Mexico so much it hurts. And the little girls that called me 'mami'.

• Gender: Male
• Demographic Region: North America
• Siblings: Twins
• Medical Conditions: Reflux, Subglottic Stenosis, Preemie, Patent ductus arteriosus, Retinopathy of prematurity
• Ethnicity: Latin American

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2 years 46 weeks

Location

Country

United States

State/Province

Tennessee