The gift of life
Lodi family hopes for Christmas miracle for infant son
After dealing with the devastating losses of his father and grandfather to cancer a little over three months apart, Lodi’s Andrew Conley and his wife Shawna saw it as a gift from God when they realized she was pregnant.
Shawna hadn’t experienced anything unusual during her pregnancy, but when her water broke at 23 weeks, she knew something was wrong.
Two weeks later, she gave birth by emergency C-section to twin boys. One son, Lucas, passed after just five days. The other son, Nolan, continues to fight for his life in the NICU at Sutter Memorial Hospital.
“To go through everything thing we’re going through has just been devastating because we’ve just been hit with one loss after another. What else do we have to go through?,” Andrew’s mom Armitta Witt said.
Everything about going through a pregnancy, from delivery to coming home from the hospital with a baby, has been robbed from the young couple, Witt said.
The Conleys didn’t even get to hold Nolan until he was six weeks old. He is now is now 3 1 ⁄2 months old. “It’s like they go home and it’s like they’re parents but there is no child. So there is this huge void in all of our lives right now, and we just wait daily for new news,” Witt said.
Lucas Scott and Nolan David were due to come into the world on Dec. 20, but all that changed when Conley’s water broke early. She was taken by ambulance to Sutter Memorial Hospital where doctors examined the amniotic fluid and were able to keep the babies in for two more weeks. Conley delivered her boys on Sept. 10 after spending two weeks in the high-risk maternity ward.
Lucas, who was the oldest, only survived five days after he was born.
“He opened his eyes once right after he was born and looked at his daddy, and then he never opened his eyes again,” Witt said.
After his birth, Lucas was immediately placed on a ventilator, His kidneys were not functioning properly and his blood pressure was not at a healthily level. His condition was too critical for his body to survive, and doctors suspected he had some sort of infection.
Lucas ultimately became septic, and was given several antibiotics along with water pills to get rid of fluid around his heart. They also put a shunt in his chest to keep the fluid away from his major organs.
Doctors did everything they could, but Lucas wasn’t able to pull through, Witt said.
Nolan continues to fight after already having surgery to close an open duct in his heart. He has two hernias that require operation, along with two holes in his heart. Cardiologists checked his heart and, fortunately, the holes are small enough that they won’t require an operation.
Nolan is also suffering from chronic lung disease. Doctors have advised Shawna and Andrew not to take him in public for the first couple of years to avoid infection, which could be deadly. They will also have to wait for at least two years to know if Nolan has cerebral palsy.
For a while, things were looking up for Nolan, and he was expected to go home before the end of the year.
His health recently took a turn for the worse, however.
On Monday night, both upper lobes of his lungs collapsed. He was immediately placed on a ventilator.
“A week ago he was getting ready to come home. They were increasing his feeding. They were working on transitioning him to home and all the things that go along with that, and now he’s in such critical condition that we don’t know what the prognosis is at this moment,” Witt explained.
Doctors seem to think Nolan’s change in condition was caused by an infection, and are not sure how he contracted it.
“This recent month has just been like a kick in the gut for all of us, but especially for Andrew and Shawna. Here it’s Christmas and they were hoping he was going to be home,” Witt said.
The family is trying to stay positive and hope for the best.
If losing one child and watching the other child fight for their life isn’t enough, Shawna and Andrew are faced with almost $50,000 in hospital bills.
With Nolan’s condition turning critical, he won’t be home before the new year.
Shawna and Andrew will soon be hit with another set of expenses for Nolan, with a new year requiring the insurance deductible to be met again. Nolan’s heart surgery alone will cost Shawna and Andrew $700. They also owe ambulance fees.
Witt has started a Go-FundMe page to help raise funds for the couple’s hospital expenses. They have raised more than $6,000 as of Friday. To donate, visit
gofundme.com and search for “Shawna & Nolan’s Medical Expenses,” or visit tinyurl.com/houdok7.