Calgary Herald

AMAZING ADOPTION

Taking home a sick child

- VALERIE F ORTNEY vfortney@postmedia.com Twitter.com/valfortney

It was the most heart-wrenching conversati­on of their lives.

“We sat down in the cafeteria and said, ‘What are we going to do? He may or may not live, he might never walk or talk,’ ” says Kalie Reimer of the night six months ago at Alberta Children’s Hospital when she and husband Jonathan were told there was still time to cancel the adoption of their second child.

The two were in agreement, though. “We adopted him for selfish reasons, but now he needed us more than ever,” she says. “We decided even if it was to help him through palliative care, he was our child now.”

Many would have forgiven them for backing out.

In the case of the Reimers, though, faced with the deadline of finalizing the adoption of baby Hank, they doubled-down on their commitment to new parenthood.

They’d only known the little guy for a few days when his little shoulder twitch turned into a seizure, which soon after was found to be caused by a blood clot in the brain. On a later summer’s day in 2017, Hank added his name to the more than 500 babies and children rushed each year to the Alberta Children’s Hospital with illnesses and injuries that put their brains at serious risk.

Flash forward to February 2018. Baby Hank is a robustly healthy five-month-old, whose chubby cheeks and dimpled thighs have earned him the family nickname, Hank the Tank.

On the day we meet in the very same hospital, it neverthele­ss feels like a world and lifetime away. Baby Hank babbles away as he lies on a blanket, his threeyear-old sister Molly plays with dolls and Reimer shares her story through smiles and the occasional tear.

Reimer has agreed to speak about her family’s life-and-death struggle to help promote the 2018 Country 105 Caring for Kids Radiothon, Feb. 7 to 9, an annual fundraiser for the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

“It was just overwhelmi­ng, the experience and education of everyone doing the rounds,” she says of their time in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.

“All of those people focused on our baby, I can’t thank them enough. They are truly exceptiona­l.”

When she married her husband in 2010, Reimer couldn’t have imagined the struggle that lay ahead in her lifelong dream to have children. After trying unsuccessf­ully to conceive, the couple turned to open adoption. In 2014, Molly came along, but it would take three more years before they could round out the family to four.

“Molly is just a magical child,” she says of her blond-haired, gregarious little girl. “I couldn’t wait to give her a baby brother or sister.”

In August 2017, they got just a couple of hours’ warning that baby number two was ready to join them. “We had 10 days’ notice for Molly,” she says with a laugh. “So we weren’t quite prepared for Hank. We raced home to pick up a car seat and some baby bottles, then went to the hospital.”

The new baby appeared healthy and the Reimers were given the all clear to take him home the very next day. A week later, they went out with extended-family members to celebrate over lunch. When Reimer noticed her new baby’s shoulder twitch, she called the Alberta Health Services Health Link informatio­n line. “It looked like nothing, but we just wanted to make sure it was nothing,” she says. “They said to take him to the hospital to get it checked.”

After he had a seizure in the hospital, doctors told the new adoptive parents that Hank, diagnosed with a massive blood clot, likely wouldn’t make it through the night. When he made it past the 72-hour mark, though, there was at least a faint hope for survival.

After the couple recommitte­d to their very sick child — not knowing that the work doctors and hospital staff would do over the next several days would dissolve his brain clot — they had a celebratio­n with family members right in the PICU.

“He was ours from the first moment,” says Reimer, who doesn’t consider herself extraordin­ary in the least for staying by her baby through his life-and-death struggle.

“We adopted selfishly because we wanted kids. If we had given birth to him, there would be no going back,” she adds. “We have the perfect baby and the most wonderful family.”

We adopted selfishly because we wanted kids. If we had given birth to him, there would be no going back.

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 ?? DARREN MAKOWICHUK ?? Kalie Reimer, daughter Molly, 3, and son Hank, who suffered a blood clot in his brain shortly after birth. Doctors said he might not make it through the night but today he is a healthy five-month-old.
DARREN MAKOWICHUK Kalie Reimer, daughter Molly, 3, and son Hank, who suffered a blood clot in his brain shortly after birth. Doctors said he might not make it through the night but today he is a healthy five-month-old.
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