Unlike
most teenage pregnancies mine was no accident; my sweet baby girl was planned.
I found out I was pregnant when I was about 4 weeks along. My boyfriend, Tanner,
and I were ecstatic. The next 20 weeks I did what any expecting mother would do
– I shopped and planned and set up our room, making sure everything would be
ready and perfect.
Kaliah
Dailynn Holly Jeffery was born on July 20, 2011. When I first held her, my
entire life changed at that moment. Gazing at me with her big brown bright
eyes, as I touched her thick brown hair, I couldn’t put her down. She was
absolutely gorgeous.
In
the hospital, the doctor noticed I had a slight cough. I told her I’d had it
for about a week. That night, my cough started to get worse. Still, nobody seemed
too concerned about it. The doctors thought I was probably tired after labor. I
was asked if I wanted to get the Tdap vaccine before I left the hospital. I
said yes. I hadn’t gotten the vaccine in 5 years and I needed it for school
when I was pregnant, but they wanted to wait till after I gave birth. They gave
me the shot the next day and sent me and my perfect little family home.
The
next nine days everything was going pretty great. I still had my cough but it
hadn’t gotten any worse. When Kaliah was about 10 days old I heard her sneeze.
Like any new mother, I panicked. I started searching the Internet on symptoms
of newborn colds. At first nothing caught my eye until I saw whooping cough
“extremely dangerous for newborns.” The next day my cough sounded worse and I
also heard Kaliah cough a few times. So, I took my baby to the walk-in clinic
and told them that I thought we had whooping cough.
The
doctor asked about our symptoms. Then, he told me we “didn’t have the symptoms
of whooping cough and that we appeared fine.” I explained to him about how I
researched pertussis and that it makes you appear fine until you’re having a
coughing spell. He finally agreed to test us, even though he said they had
never tested a baby so young before.
Two
days later I got a phone call from the health department telling me that Kaliah
and I were both positive for pertussis. I was in utter shock. How could this
happen? The next day her cough got worse, she wasn’t keeping much food down,
and she also looked a little blue around her eyes. We went to the emergency
room. They told us we should stay in the hospital overnight so they could
observe her.
I
thought we were just there for the night, but Kaliah wasn’t getting better. She
wasn’t eating much, and when she did eat she would cough so hard she would
throw up. They had to keep upping her dosage of oxygen. She was getting weaker.
On day3 in the hospital the doctors decided to put her on a feeding tube. I
would pump breast milk and they would put her on a continuous drip.
On
day 5 we had our first big scare, she stopped breathing. Tons of doctors and
nurses rushed in to help her. The doctors explained that it was time to put her
on a ventilator.
They
let me and Tanner’s mom go into the room. We had to wear gowns, masks, and gloves
to make sure she wouldn’t catch anything else. Kaliah was in an incubator with
wires on her, an IV in her wrist, and a ventilator tube in her mouth. It was so
heartbreaking to see my little baby girl in so much pain. The doctors told me
to go home for the night to get some rest. Well, later that night my phone
rang. The doctor started telling me Kaliah’s infection was taking over her
blood cells.
The
next morning Kaliah looked so puffy. She could no longer open her eyes and they
had her on pain medications. The doctors told us we could hold her hand or her
foot and that we should talk to her. I grabbed her hand and Tanner touched her
foot and we told her that we loved her. We both stood there and cried.
I
thought about how just a week ago she was healthy as can be. All of a sudden,
Kaliah started twitching. We were watching our 3 ½ week old baby have a
seizure. Tanner and I were so scared we didn’t know what was going to happen.
They moved her that night to Children’s Hospital.
The
next morning a doctor told us she had yet another seizure that had lasted six
minutes. They had done a blood transfusion and a spinal tap. The doctor brought
up the ECMO machine and told me that if things got worse that it was our last
option. This was the first time anyone had ever even brought up the fact that
Kaliah might not make it!
That
was the very moment I started to shut everyone around me out, I didn’t believe
it. “Not make it?” There was no way. This lady is crazy. We called our
families. Within an hour everyone was there.
As
the doctors were hooking Kaliah up to do a brain scan they started to panic –
not because of her brain, but because she had a very low oxygen level. Her
heart and lungs were working too hard. Everything was getting worse fast.
Doctors again explained the ECMO machine. It would pump blood out of her body
into a machine, put oxygen in the blood, and pump the blood back into her body.
Plain and simple it was life support, our very last option.
After
3 hours of surgery to implant the ECMO machine, I remember going back in that
room to see her. I could barely recognize her. My little girl was swollen
everywhere. Her eyes were more puffy then before, she felt like her skin was
tight and full, she was also really warm. There were two tubes inserted by her neck
and right shoulder.
Still,
I knew my baby would pull through, she had to. Now that she was on life
support, she didn’t have to do any work. She will gain
her strength back. My sister and I stayed in the hospital that night.
The
next morning the doctor told us “last night there were some complications with
the ECMO machine. Her body is rejecting all the medication. Everything we’re
putting in her veins is leaking out into her body. That’s why she’s so swollen.
It’s part of the disease (pertussis). Her chances of survival at this point
aren’t good at all.” I began to cry and I held her hand for a long time.
On
day 9 at the hospital, our entire families visited. Kaliah’s body was turning
purple from all the blood and medicines leaking from her veins. It was so hard
to see her that way. I tried my hardest to stay strong for her. I kept telling
her I loved her, that everything was going to be alright.
We
sat in the waiting room for a long time praying she would make it. Four doctors
came out to talk to us; they pulled all of us into a room. I remember exactly
what they said. “We have all been working very hard on Kaliah and the machine
just keeps cutting out. It’s just not working anymore. There is nothing more we
can do to help her, she’s too sick. We are so very sorry.” Everyone in the room
was crying including all the doctors.
The
doctors brought our whole family back into Kaliah’s room so we could say our
final goodbyes. They sat me and Tanner down on a couch they placed Kaliah in my
arms, for the last time. She wore striped pajamas with a monkey on the front;
she was absolutely beautiful.
I
held my sweet baby in my arms, with Tanner beside me; we held her hands. I
kissed her on the forehead and told her I loved her so much and she wouldn’t
have to fight anymore. Tanner kissed her on the hand and told her he loved her.
A few moments later we were doing the hardest thing I think I will ever have to
do in my entire life. We watched the doctor take her off life support. Kaliah
gasped for breath. We sat there and watched our little girl go. The doctor came
in and checked for a heart rate and said “I’m sorry she’s gone.” He then took
her out of my arms. Tanner and I walked out into the waiting room after saying
goodbye to our 27 day-old baby girl.
I
keep telling myself that god gave me Kaliah for a reason, even if I couldn’t
have her forever. I knew that when she passed I would make her live on and
share her story to save other babies from this horrible disease. I would not
let her die for no reason. She was too beautiful for the earth.
