Melanie's Son Ben

Baby Surprise: With a Special Gift

In spring of 1990 my first child was just learning to crawl. To my surprise I found out I was expecting again. By August everything seemed to going as expected. During my five-month doctor's visit, a routine examine found the baby’s heartbeat to be irregular and very slow.
My doctor made an appointment for me to see a baby specialist two hours away in another town. The new doctor informed me that the baby I was carrying had what they call congenital complete heart block.
So I asked, "what does that mean." The doctor explained that my son’s heart did not have all the electricity in it to function on its own. And that he had pulmonary stenois. He also explained that he would have to be taken c-section.
So for the next three and half months I went on a two-hour trip every Tuesday to see the baby specialist. He would tell me, " the baby is fine, we will have you come back on anther week." By the time , I was eight and half months and the doctor was call around the clock. He didn’t want me to go into labor.
On December 26,1990 my son was born. I didn’t get to see him until he was over 6 hours old. I was so scared to see my son for the first time. I was expecting a very small sick baby. But he was a whopper, weighing in over 8 pounds. He had a lot of tubes and needles in his little body. And he was all mine.
He had to have a temporary pacemaker the day he was born. The temporary pacemaker lead almost punctured his heart. During his first night his left lung collapsed. By the time he was twenty-four hours old he had a permanent pacemaker implanted in his lower left abdomen.
By the time my son was thirteen days old he was well enough to go home. He is fifteen now and ready to graduate from the eighth grade. The first pacemaker only lasted eight years. In 1998 my son received his second pacemaker and that one only lasted four years. Then in 2002 he received his first dual chamber pacemaker. He has been doing wonderful ever since then.
God bless the doctor who found out what was wrong with my son. My son has been a great inspiration to me and the rest of our family.