Story
Name
Liam Brodersen
Injury/Illness
Premature Birth
Hi! My name is Christa Brodersen. Thank you for allowing me to share our story with you.
On Wednesday October 2nd I woke up with a huge sharp pain on my right side upper abdomen. I drove myself to the Mother Baby Center at Mercy Hospital. My Blood pressure spiked to 205 / 110 and it showed I had protein in my urine which indicated that I had severe preeclampsia. I was transported by ambulance to The Mother Baby Center Abbott in Minneapolis where we found out my kidneys were failing.
On Friday October 4th my blood pressure couldn't be controlled by medication which was restricting blood flow from me to Liam . The doctors checked blood labs Friday night which at that point my liver started to go into failure at 9 pm. The only way we both would have a chance of surviving, would be for them to deliver me. The nurses called my husband Paul, who was home with our other 2 boys (Blake 13 and Noah almost 6) and asked him to come right away and to alert him as to how things changed so drastically. Once Paul got there about 10:00 pm, they were bringing me to the OR for an emergency C-Section. Liam was breech, and bottom down and the placenta was in the front, so they had a hard time getting him out. They finally got him out at 11:12 pm weighing 1 point 2 oz. Liam was doing great at first. We were almost to the point of weening him off the ventilator as he was breathing well on his own and had stable weight gain.
Saturday October 12th at 4:41 am is when things started taking a turn for the worse. We received a call that Liam was really sick, so we rushed down from our room to meet with the doctors. We were told he had NEC which is a deadly infection premature babies can get if born before 30 weeks gestational. Liam got worse within the next 24 hours. The antibiotics just weren't working. On Monday October 14th the decision was made to open up his stomach and remove or see if they could fix it what was going on. The biggest challenge was getting Liam to the O.R., through the surgery and back to his incubator alive. Before surgery, we were able to get him baptized. While in surgery, they ended removing his colon, large intestine and his small bowel, which were all dead. Through all of this, the Doctors and Surgeon were trying to convince us that Liam was dying and suggested we take him off of the ventilator. We decided to fight for our child, He made it this far and we have faith he will recover, so we can take him home.
As of right now Liam is stable and we have to let his body fight the infection while he is recovering from surgery. The following days are so critical. We have more surgeries down the road and we have no release date thus far for us to take Liam home. Your prayers are so appreciated.
Christa, Paul, Blake, Noah and baby Liam