Laura McCarthy
USA

Patrick’s Story

On February 11, 2006, I gave birth to our beautiful baby boy, Patrick. My water broke at 39 weeks while we were watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. My pregnancy and delivery went very smoothly. About an hour after Patrick was born, his blood sugar was very low and the attending pediatrician noticed the petechiae all over his body and admitted him to the NICU. It was a heartbreaking experience to have him taken away from me because I was not sure that I would ever see him again. The first 24 hours were unbearable. The neonatal doctor diagnosed him with NAIT and continued to rattle off one bad thing after another: blood transfusion, 22K platelet count, and a head bleed. I refused to go visit him down in the NICU because I thought we were losing him.Slowly things began to improve. He had 3 transfusions and spent 3 weeks in the NICU before we got the green light for him to come home. The NICU staff was magnificent and his head bleed was tiny and healed on its own. Today we have a happy, loving six year old who wants nothing more than to have a sibling. Only time will tell. The stories of other NAIT babies continue to give us inspiration and support.