From a complicated, premature delivery to a happy, healthy toddler
Despite grim diagnosis, couple never gave up hope for their son, Gabriel
Nothing shy about Gabriel Strang. The little blond boy with the impish grin leads a visitor by the finger to show off his toys. He runs around his yard, hopping on his small trike and playing at the water table. “I’m 2,” he proudly announces.
He’s a happy, healthy toddler. He’s also a child who doctors thought would never be born.
The bad news started at the 20week ultrasound. The fetus looked small.
Transferred from Bracebridge to Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, Heather Claridge underwent another ultrasound. The diagnosis: the fetus suffered from “severe asymmetrical intrauterine growth restriction.” The placenta was not providing enough nutrients for normal growth.
At 22 weeks, the fetus weighed 226 grams, putting it in the second percentile. The obstetrician in Mount Sinai’s Special Pregnancy Program was compassionate but truthful with Claridge and her wife, Natalie Strang. From medical experience, he did not believe their baby would make it.
“You’re hearing the doctor talk at you, but you can’t believe what he’s saying. It was surreal,” says Strang, 28, sitting at the couple’s kitchen table. “Just thinking about it now makes me well up. It was so overwhelming.”
There was no fetal surgery to be done, no medicine to take. No fix. They left that meeting weighing their options: terminate the pregnancy — or pray for a miracle.
They went for a miracle, embarking on a road to motherhood far rockier than they had ever imagined.
The women, married in 2011, had been eager to start a family. They were both healthy, with good jobs in law enforcement. Claridge, then 33, got pregnant fairly quickly using donor sperm. The baby was due in October 2013. Their families were thrilled. No one they knew had problematic pregnancies. It was all blissfully smooth, until then.
“We were suddenly immersed in a world we didn’t even know existed,” says Strang.
Their game plan was simple: Be positive. They finished the nursery. Claridge took a work leave to rest. Strang wrote a song about the baby, “Hey Bean,” that she sang to him in utero. They read about premature babies and potential developmental problems. They felt they could deal with whatever happened, as long as the baby lived.
But at 24 weeks, the news was even bleaker. The latest ultrasound showed the fetus at an estimated weight of 386 grams, placing it in just the first percentile for growth.
“The doctor told us, ‘You will be parents, but not this time,’ ” says Strang. They sobbed in the doctor’s office.
Then, to make matters worse, Claridge developed pre-eclampsia, a potentially serious pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure. The only cure is the baby’s delivery, but “Bean” was much too small to survive.
“I was scared that the blood pressure would get to the point that we’d have to deliver,” says Claridge, now 36. “I would have failed the baby. We wanted the baby to grow. Every day was hugely important.”
They met with Mount Sinai specialists once or twice a week. When the fetus reached 500 grams, the mothers cheered. At 751 grams, the question was when to deliver. It’s a matter of finding the right balance between the risk of stillbirth if not delivered and risks of prematurity if delivered, explains obstetrician Rory Windrim. They opted to wait.
At 32 weeks, it was time. The baby weighed an estimated 1,000 grams. In the delivery room, Claridge was hooked up to the equipment. Strang held her hand.
Then Strang felt the hand go limp. The heart monitor displayed a flat line. The doctor shouted, “We’re losing her,” and called for a crash cart, recalls Strang.
“At that moment I felt my world was over,” remembers Strang, getting teary. “I kept saying to her, ‘Please, baby, breathe. Please, breathe.’ ”
“And that’s what I woke up to, hearing ‘Breathe’ and feeling her hand,” says Claridge. Ephedrine injected into her IV had brought her back. It was later diagnosed as a vasovagal reaction resulting in fainting.
Eventually, the delivery resumed, and Strang excitedly announced, “We have a son.”
He weighed 840 grams, not quite two pounds. It was less than the pre- delivery ultrasound estimate, which has a margin of error, explains Windrim.
But the good news: the baby was breathing on his own. They named him Gabriel.
He was whisked off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where he spent a tumultuous 95 days of setbacks and gains.
Slowly he put on weight, finally going home in early December 2013.
Today he’s small, weighing 19.5 pounds. An average 2-year-old is about 27 pounds. Mount Sinai neonatologist Jennifer Young says the boy may always be on the small side but will experience normal growth phases. Gabriel has no developmental delays.