Tatum's Story

Tatum was born on March 26th 2010.  He was supposed to come out easily at home with no complications or health problems.  Unfortunatley he didn't get the memo.  He turned sideways that morning, and when I had my midwife come just to check me and see if I was in labor (because I honestly didn't think I was) She got panicked and said "You are at a 7 and I can't feel a head!  Get dressed and get in my car we have to go to the hospital."  As you can imagine I was a little freaked out, but I didn't have time to do anything but listen to her advice and follow it.  I called Brandon and told him to meet me at the hospital.  Once we got there I was surprised by how amazing the doctor was.  He tried everything to get Tatum out vaginally, but after 1 1/2 hours of trying everything he could, Liz (my midwife) leaned over to me and said "it's time to ask to have a  cecarian.  Your baby is in stress and needs to come out now.  As I was being cut open Liz said to me "There are Angels here"  The epidural hadn't set in as much as it should have so I still was feeling quite a bit.  Brandon was holding my left hand and no one was on my right, but I had to keep looking over because I could feel a hand holding mine, and from that point on, I knew that Heavenly Father was mindful of my situation and had sent Angels to watch over us all. 
I never got to hold Tate, or even get a good look at him because they noticed that he had a cleft lip and palat and needed to make sure there were no other complications.  When they couldn't get a tube down his esophogas they took some x-ray's and determined that he needed to go to Primary Children's Hospital and have specialists take care of him.  Soon he was on his first flight with his daddy to Salt Lake.  Once they got a good look at him they determined that he had a hole in his heart that made no seperation between the 4 chambers, so all of the blood would mix together, the blood that goes in and the oxigenated blood that's supposed to go out, so he only has what they call a 1 chamber heart.  Luckily he has enough oxigenated blood to suffice for his little body, so for now it's enough.  They will do a surgery to repair that when he's about 6 months.  He also had a trachial essophigial fistula.  That's where the bottom of the esophogus is connecetd to the trachia and there is a gap between the top and bottom of the esophogus.  The cleft was no longer any sort of issue at all in our minds.  3 days after he was born he had his first surgery.  They took care of his T.E.F.  He has recovered wonderfully from that thanks to all of the prayers from friends and family!  We will find out soon when they will do repairs on the cleft lip and palat.  Keep checking the blog, we keep it updated daily!