The night we brought that sweet baby home, we were scared. We had just been told he could die, within a few days without proper care he would be dead! His weight had him at .001 percentile on the growth chart. That night we began round the clock love and care. His little tummy was only able to handle a half an ounce of formula per feed. So, we had to set alarms to feed him every 2 hours around the clock. The tricky part: he was only allowed to feed for half an hour because he worked so hard and used so much energy that if he fed for longer, he would actually begin burning more calories than he could take in. So, even though our 1st instincts were to just let him eat till he was full, we couldn’t and he wouldn’t.
Night one, he could hardly finish his half-ounce feeds. He was exhausted. He slept, and we had to wake him for every feed. He never once cried. He never once woke to eat on his own. He couldn’t. That is failure to thrive. When a child’s cries for care are not answered, they stop crying. When their hungry bellies are not fed, they lose their sense of hunger. When they do not have the proper nutrition they lose muscle mass and body fat. Without body fat, their little bodies are unable to regulate their own body temperature. They give up the will to fight, they give up the will to live. That sweet baby boy had given up, but we were not giving up on him. Slowly his half-ounce became 3/4 ounce, then an ounce, and so on.
Courtesy of Eric and LeAnne Stadler
He had a visiting nurse come once a week, and we took him to his pediatrician once a week where he was weighed and checked over. We had a baby scale we had to use daily to weigh him as well. He was eating and putting on weight, but there was still something off. He had no real muscle tone, he was like a rag doll. His arms and legs just hung to his sides, and he couldn’t control his own head… and his head kept growing. When he would actually have the energy to stay awake, his eyes seemed void, almost as if he was blind. He still was not crying or making any noises at all. The second week the nurse visited, we explained our concerns and told her we would be discussing them with his pediatricians. She listened carefully, and when we were finished, she asked if we had ever heard of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Shaken Baby Syndrome, you know… NEVER EVER SHAKE A BABY! We quickly did some online research then called his nurse practitioner. She was on vacation, so we explained everything to the nurse and waited for someone to call us back with what to do next. That evening, the phone rang again. It was Emily, his NP. She said she had been sitting on the beach and praying and thinking about this sweet baby boy, and she came up with the same thought. Shaken Baby Syndrome. She ordered an MRI and an Ultra Sound. The same hospital he had stayed at before would call and set everything up.
Courtesy of Eric and LeAnne Stadler
A month after we first held that frail baby, he was put under, and an extensive MRI was done of his big head. Because he was high risk, he had to stay the night. We settled in for the night, prayed for answers, and awaited the results. The next morning, a team of white coats filled the room. I had not seen so many doctors in one room. They began to explain to us that the MRI showed blood in both ventricles of his brain (the middle portion of the brain) and blood behind his eyes. The bleeds were consistent with non-accidental head trauma. There was newer blood and older blood.
Next, they needed to do a full skeletal scan to check his tiny body for breaks or fractures. We again waited for those results and were relieved to find out that there were no injuries to his skeletal structure. That day we spoke to several specialists as they began to tell us more about what was to come. More MRIs, EEGs, EKGs, CTs, appointments, therapists, and more. There was not a lot of time to digest all the information because we had to focus on getting more answers, what had actually happened to this sweet baby boy, and who had done it. And we had to do it quickly because the goal for his case was still reunification. That sweet baby had to do visitations twice a week with people who very likely were his abusers.
Courtesy of Eric and LeAnne Stadler
