Baby David's Journey: The Beginning

David Micheal Crovo was born via C-section on 4/27/2024. Throughout the pregnancy I had normal prenatal care, ultrasound at 9 weeks, 14 weeks, 20 weeks, 24 weeks, 28 weeks. I was told everything looked normal and the baby was healthy. While I was pregnant I worked as a preschool teacher and at 31 weeks pregnant I fell at school. After 5 hours of contractions my coworkers convinced me to go to the hospital to be checked out. Upon arrival I was having consistent contractions but I was not progressing or dilating. Despite the medicine I was given to stop contractions, they continued. The next morning the doctors were going to let me leave after an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay with the baby. 

I had mychart connected to my email and I had read the results before the doctor could come talk to me. It said pleural effusion? UH what, I thought... I turned to google… okay so its fluid around the baby's organs that can turn into hydrops which can be fatal..... my heart sank. Then the doctor came in, pulled a chair up and told me I needed to go see the maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) specialist/ high risk OBGYN, and that she couldn't answer many of my questions. 

Before I was discharged from the hospital I already had an appointment scheduled in a couple hours to go see the high risk obgyn. When my husband and I got there the doctor was in the room with us and the ultrasound tech. He was directing the tech on what he wants to see, he then gets his phone out and leaves the room. He came back in and told us to come with him to his office to talk. His first words... "we have a sick baby here". Oh ok, thanks, that's very comforting. He was calling Riley's Children Hospital in Indianapolis to see if we needed to go there. He told us to come back in 24 hours, we'll do another scan and it will give him time to connect with the doctors at Rileys to talk about things. At this point he still believes it is pleural effusion. 

The unknown is something I dread, and at this point after everything weve been through, hate. The next 24 hours were painfully slow. Too much time spent on google, too upset to talk to anybody... oh and I had 4 other children I went home to and had to pretend everything was okay. 

The next day, again the doctor was in the room guiding the ultrasound tech. Verbatim he says "ohh there's heart and lung failure here." wtf. The doctor told us to come meet him in his office again so we could talk. The doctor told us that this baby is not going to make it to June in utero, we might be lucky to get to the middle of May.. My due date was June 22nd. We had two options, we could go to Rileys, they could put a shunt in- utero (still thinking this is fetal hydrocephalus that we are dealing with) to help drain the fluid, but the baby will be delivered within the next two weeks. Or we can stay in Fort Wayne, deliver the baby within the next couple of days, and the NICU team here would be able to handle it. It was an easy choice for us, we have 4 other children here and we were looking at a 6-8 week NICU stay. We are delivering the baby here.

My husband and I didnt ever find out the gender of any of our babies until they were born, but at this point we asked the ultrasound tech to put the sex of the baby in an envelope for us. I didnt know what the road ahead of us held and I wanted to be able to pick out a name for the baby before I was in turmoil in the delivery room (as if I wasnt already). 

I was told I would have to have a c-section because a team of 8-12 people need to be ready to receive the baby at delivery and it would be dangerous for the baby. Before this I had 3 vaginal deliveries with my other children, so this really upset me but I trusted my doctor. 

I left the doctors office waiting on a call from the doctor to hear when my C-section would be scheduled. 30 minutes later he called and told me- 9am tomorrow morning, arrive at 7.... I turned to my husband, ok, we're having our baby tomorrow morning, we need to pack and arrange care for our other children.

My mom had just been admitted into the hospital and my dad recently had back surgery, they were out. We called my husband's sisters to see if they could help but they both have a lot of young children and dont live close to us, they are out. I called my best friend who has 2 young boys herself. "I have a bigg question for you... I have to have my baby tomorrow and I need someone to take my 3 kids while my husband and I are in the hospital." She talked to her husband and without hesitation they said yes.

I was only 31 weeks… with my 4th pregnancy… I had nothing prepared at the house. When I was stressing about this to my family they told me not to worry, I’ll have time to prepare after I have the baby because the baby will not be coming home soon. As if that is supposed to make me feel better. I had 12 hours to get me and my other children packed for the next couple of days, I had to focus on that. My husband and I got very little sleep that night. We didnt have time to process what was going on and everything was happening fast. 

The next morning we dropped our kids off, went to the hospital, had the c-section. Everything was ok…. David was intubated immediately, we didnt get to hold him and he was taken to the NICU quickly. An hour later when I was in recovery the neonatologist came to tell my husband and I that our baby actually had a birth defect called CDH (congenital diaphragmatic hernia)... From what they could see on the x-ray his intestines were in his right chest cavity, and he would need surgery.

When we made it upstairs to see David there was a team of doctors and the surgeons were there. David was hooked up to soo many machines, he had IVS everywhere. At this point it was a waiting game to see when he would be strong enough for surgery. David had pulmonary hypertension and they had to make sure he was stable before they could operate. If he needed ECMO he would have to be flown to Rileys. 

So we waited, we couldnt hold him, or touch him without gloves on. I felt numb through most of this, still trying to comprehend what was going on with my baby. David did not end up needing ecmo and when he was 5 days old they decided it was time for surgery. When the surgeons came to talk to us after surgery they explained that his intestines and liver were in his right chest cavity but they were able to get them down and stitch the hole in his diaphragm. 

Davids NICU stay was 30 days of ups and downs. He was intubated for 2 weeks, on oxygen for 27 days, had an NG tube for 29 days, and they sent us home on day 30. I was grateful to go home quicker than expected but it came with a lot of challenges. David struggled with his bottles, he would take an hour to eat, coughing and gagging throughout his feedings. Then one night 7 days after we were released from the NICU he started projectile vomiting. At midnight I decided we had to go to the ER. He had a bowel obstruction, he needed surgery again, we were in the hospital for another 7 days. 

For the next month we had a hard time with his bottles, it took him a long time to eat, and then he started to make noises, which turned into retractions. I took him to the ER a couple of times but his oxygen levels were ok so they sent us home. A couple days later we saw a pediatric pulmonologist that ended up admitting David so they could do some testing. It was clear that something wasnt right. The testing showed he wasnt aspirating, but the doctors could see I wasnt crazy… He could not tolerate his bottles without it turning into retractions. They decided to put an NG tube in and hold bottle feedings for the time being. The doctors planned to send us home and I lost it. How could you send us home with an NG tube, no idea whats going on and no plans on what we are doing about this? One of the doctors agreed, he said “honestly we are throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks”. FINALLY I started doing research of my own. I found that Cincinnati Childrens has a CDH clinic, a whole team of doctors that handles babies that were born with CDH. I told the doctor I wanted a referral there ASAP. They did that and we went home with David on an NG tube waiting for a call from Cincinnati….