Twenty nine weeks to the day at 11:05 on 11-05 my wife had an emergency cesarean. Within minutes of the Dr's decision, my wife was unconscious and our Son Lane was struggling to take his first breath. At 3lbs 11.9 ounces he had a difficult and long road ahead.

At fifteen weeks Tonia was diagnosed with placenta previa and as a result we made several emergency runs to the hospital because of bleeding.

Tonia went into the hospital on Sat the 2nd for contractions and we stayed until Nov the 5th. They sent her home because the contractions stopped and she was doing great. We made
it home and after 20 minutes of being home she started bleeding heavy. We believe the baby had turned back to the breach position and kicked the placenta which caused bleeding. It was just to much bleeding this time to stop on its own. We jumped into the car and headed back to the hospital. They put us back in the same room she just left an hour ago and for the next 6 hours they did everything they could to stop the bleeding and the contractions. She lost so much blood and it was becoming dangerous for Tonia and the baby. Our doctor made the difficult call to do an emergency cesarean. Tonia's blood pressure was so low she was at risk of going into cardiac arest putting her and the baby at risk.

Seeing my wife unconscious and in the process of being sewed back up on one ER table and my son being quickly probed, suctioned, and checked out on another table sent me into shock. I felt like a ghost.

That night Lane was put on a ventilator but was quickly moved to a 50% oxygen tent a day later. He had no bleeding on the brain. He came out of the womb crying (a very good sign) but like all premature babies his lungs were not fully developed. He was not supposed to be using his lungs for another 5 weeks. His heart was strong, but his PDA was open (a valve that normally closes on full term babies when they are born and cry for the first time). He had two I.V. lines, tubes in his nose, down his throat, heart and respiratory monitors stuck on his chest, and a blood pressure monitor on his foot. Every now and then his lungs would give out and he would stop breathing. The nurses had to stimulate him with a gently shake to get him breathing again (seeing this happen live to your baby tears you apart).

Thanks to some incredible lactation experts Tonia's milk was encouraged to come in and she was on the road to pumping breast milk. I made several late night milk deliveries down to the NICU to feed our son. This consisted of holding a small syringe in the air with a long small tube down his throat and into his stomach, gravity did the rest.

Five days later Tonia was strong enough to go home and we left the hospital for the first time, leaving our son behind in the NICU. 

For the next 6 weeks we lived most of our lives in the NICU next to Lane. We helped feed him, hold him, bathe him, change him, read to him, sing to him and pray over him.

We had some comfort know that Lane had a dedicated nurse 24 hours a day and a team of Dr's including cardiologists, neurologists, neonatal nurse clinicians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and developmental therapists watching over him.

We became experts in all of the machines and how to read when things were doing well and when things were not. There were many frantic occasions when Lane would stop breathing, sometimes while being rocked in our arms, and nurses rushing over to get him breathing again.

Lane had his good days and bad days but seemed to overcome all obstacles faster than expected. He went through oxygen tents, cpaps, jaundice lights, breathing treatments, more shots than we can count, several I.V.'s sometimes in his hands, or in his feet, and blood drawn a few times a day. He eventually learned to breast feed helping him gain the needed weight to eventually leave the NICU getting him home just in time for Christmas and almost a full month before he was even supposed to be born.

We owe a great debt of thanks to Pomona Valley Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the incredible nurses and doctors that took care of Lane.

We had a special heart and respiratory monitor for Lane to sleep with at night that was loud enough to wake up all of California when he would stop breathing, usually the noise was enough to startle him back into breathing again. A few months later he was cable free for the first time and sleeping like a normal baby.

Lane is one year old in the picture below and had already caught up developmentally to kids his age. He is doing extremely well and we are confident he will live a normal healthy life.

We give thanks everyday to God for this precious gift and miracle He has brought into our life.

Dennis & Tonia Levens