My pregnancy was overall very normal. I didn’t have any complications and every test, ultrasound or check-up was completely fine. They would always say ‘’You‘re growing a healthy baby boy!’’ At 39 weeks I got a membrane sweep to induce labor and shortly after that, I started having contractions.

Being first time parents, we waited a bit and headed to the hospital that is just right up the street from us. They checked me and gave me the option to go home, since I wasn’t progressing much. So, we went back home. I tried to go to sleep but the contractions kept getting worse and worse so again, we headed back to L&D. From there, it all felt like it was going pretty fast. After 20 minutes of pushing, I gave birth to Waylen, naturally, at exactly 12 pm. He was 21 inches and weighed 7 lbs 8 oz. We did the golden hour and afterwards they ran the regular tests and check-ups. In the meantime, we switched rooms. They brought him back to our room and told us that all the tests went well and he is perfect and healthy.

We spent some time in the room with him until they came back and wanted to take him to do some bloodwork, just a normal routine. They took him and brought him back within 15 minutes but said that it didn’t work and they would have to redo it. So again, they took him and brought him back and said they would have to take him for a third time. We didn’t think anything of it yet because they assured us that everything is fine. So, they took him a third time but this time, he didn’t come back after 10-15 minutes. We waited a few more minutes until I sent my husband to go and check on him. He came back telling me that he was fine and they are just waiting for the results to come back.

My husband left the hospital for a moment to let our dogs out and grab a few things and during that moment, my world broke down. The doctor walked in and sat down. He told me that he noticed little red dots all over his body along with bruising (that they originally told us was just from the birthing process) and after running the blood test it was confirmed, he had only 7,000 blood platelets. He told me that the average platelet number would be anywhere from 200.000-400.000 and while I was crying and not being able to process all these terms I have never heard in my life (severe thrombocytopenia), he told me that an ambulance from the NICU, which is 3 hours away from our hometown, is on its way right now and they are going to give him a platelet transfusion on the way back to the NICU. I had texted my husband in the midst of it, telling him to come back ASAP and he walked in just at that moment. Now his world broke down as well. How can our perfectly healthy baby boy now suddenly be super sick? What does any of this mean? Will he be okay? All these questions popped into our heads.

The ambulance came, they spoke to us shortly and headed to the NICU with him. I signed early discharge papers, we went home, packed a few things and headed to the NICU ourselves. In the middle of the night, just 10 hours after giving birth, alone, separated from our baby boy. When we got to the NICU at about 3 am in the morning, it really hit us. I remember breaking down seeing him in the bassinet, attached to all these different cables, oxygen tubes. It all felt like a living nightmare. They answered some questions and just told us that he is going to be okay. We stayed in a hotel very close to the NICU and thankfully, because of the weird ways the universe works, we weren’t alone in this. Waylens cousin decided to come to this world early prior to his happening and was also already in the NICU. As sad as this was for all of us, there was some comfort knowing you are not alone in this.

We were in the NICU for a week until we finally got to go home. The week felt like the longest week in our life and probably the most traumatic one. He ended up having 2 platelet transfusions and the answer as to why this happened was also answered before we left. My immune system was fighting off his platelets in the womb. It was my fault, I thought. Why would my body do this?

After a few months I ended up talking to a specialist about this. FNAIT - Fetal/neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia. She had to show me pictures and explain to me what exactly that meant. I have never heard of this before. After explaining and answering some questions she also told me she had bad news. More bad news? She explained that in our case, this would happen in 100% of my pregnancies and explained what that would mean for future pregnancies and what they would look like. Once again, I couldn’t help but cry and wonder why this is happening to us. She also kept saying that Waylen is a ‘’miracle baby’’ and how lucky we are. I didn’t fully process it all until after the conversation. That is when I finally realized just how lucky we are, that he is healthy and alive. I learned that most cases don’t have this outcome and just how much could have gone wrong at any given moment. Today, he is about to turn 1 year old. He is happy, healthy and thriving and we couldn’t be more proud and happy to have our miracle baby!

Thank you for listening to our and Waylen’s story.

Matthew & Michelle Pages