First off, i want to say thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and prayers. I apologize if i haven't been returning texts, phone calls or other messages. It's just been a crazy few days.
Wolfgang "Wolfie" Roy Helfen was born his morning at 6:30am. His mom, being the great warrior she is, spent all evening yesterday and early this morning pushing out our 9lbs and 11oz boy. Her strength blew me away, and i'm proud of her more than words can express. Throughout the pregnancy and throughout labor, Wolfie moved around A LOT and always had a great, strong heartbeat. Unfortunately, when he finally came out this morning he wasn't breathing and it was clear there was something wrong. The main concerns were about his brain. They worked on him in the room briefly and then took him to the NICU there at Atlanta Medical Center. Then they (very quickly) decided to air lift him to Northside Hospital to the NICU there, so that he could undergo a special treatment (not available at Atlanta Medical) to see if they could help his brain.
As it was a whirlwind first few hours of life, we're still putting together a lot of details, but here's what we know now: Wolfie had/has something called HIE, or Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy. We're not sure how long he had it in the womb or how it happened, as he always seemed super healthy and there was nothing during labor to cause anyone to think otherwise. The way it was explained to us was that the acid level in his blood was very high. Because of this there was issue of how much oxygen was in Wolfie's blood, and more specifically how little oxygen was getting to his brain. The bottom line is he sustained a pretty heavy amount of brain damage. The result of this brain damage has been seizures and erradic breathing, among other complications.
The reason he was rushed to Northside is because they have really good NICU department there and they have a prodecure they can do that has been shown to have some success in certain cases of HIE, as long as it's done very quickly after birth. Basically, what they do is lower the body temperature to about 92ยบ. This slows down his whole body, but especially his brain. Slowing down his brain when he is this young, in some case, can help give the brain a chance to fix itself and repair some of the damage. He is on this treatment now, and will be for a total of 72 hours. Afterwards, they'll warm him up and see if there's been any improvement.
We're told Wolfie's case of HIE was quite severe, so the chances of this treatment working are smaller, but there is a possibility that he could regain a lot of function of his brain and get away with only minor learning disabilities.
We're taking things day by day, but today we're just thankful he's alive. I got to spend a lot of time today with him, but Brooke is still recovering in the hospital and has only gotten to see him for 5 minutes or so, before he was transfered. When we check out of the hospital tomorrow, we'll get to go spend the whole day with Wolfie at Northside, and we're very excited about it.
We'll try to keep everyone updated, but in the meantime, thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers, we feel very blessed by them.
Also, one random side note: Wolfie is TOTALLY like the boss of the NICU. He is seriously like 3 and 4 times larger than all the other babies, he's like a giant. :)
Wolfgang "Wolfie" Roy Helfen was born his morning at 6:30am. His mom, being the great warrior she is, spent all evening yesterday and early this morning pushing out our 9lbs and 11oz boy. Her strength blew me away, and i'm proud of her more than words can express. Throughout the pregnancy and throughout labor, Wolfie moved around A LOT and always had a great, strong heartbeat. Unfortunately, when he finally came out this morning he wasn't breathing and it was clear there was something wrong. The main concerns were about his brain. They worked on him in the room briefly and then took him to the NICU there at Atlanta Medical Center. Then they (very quickly) decided to air lift him to Northside Hospital to the NICU there, so that he could undergo a special treatment (not available at Atlanta Medical) to see if they could help his brain.
As it was a whirlwind first few hours of life, we're still putting together a lot of details, but here's what we know now: Wolfie had/has something called HIE, or Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy. We're not sure how long he had it in the womb or how it happened, as he always seemed super healthy and there was nothing during labor to cause anyone to think otherwise. The way it was explained to us was that the acid level in his blood was very high. Because of this there was issue of how much oxygen was in Wolfie's blood, and more specifically how little oxygen was getting to his brain. The bottom line is he sustained a pretty heavy amount of brain damage. The result of this brain damage has been seizures and erradic breathing, among other complications.
The reason he was rushed to Northside is because they have really good NICU department there and they have a prodecure they can do that has been shown to have some success in certain cases of HIE, as long as it's done very quickly after birth. Basically, what they do is lower the body temperature to about 92ยบ. This slows down his whole body, but especially his brain. Slowing down his brain when he is this young, in some case, can help give the brain a chance to fix itself and repair some of the damage. He is on this treatment now, and will be for a total of 72 hours. Afterwards, they'll warm him up and see if there's been any improvement.
We're told Wolfie's case of HIE was quite severe, so the chances of this treatment working are smaller, but there is a possibility that he could regain a lot of function of his brain and get away with only minor learning disabilities.
We're taking things day by day, but today we're just thankful he's alive. I got to spend a lot of time today with him, but Brooke is still recovering in the hospital and has only gotten to see him for 5 minutes or so, before he was transfered. When we check out of the hospital tomorrow, we'll get to go spend the whole day with Wolfie at Northside, and we're very excited about it.
We'll try to keep everyone updated, but in the meantime, thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers, we feel very blessed by them.
Also, one random side note: Wolfie is TOTALLY like the boss of the NICU. He is seriously like 3 and 4 times larger than all the other babies, he's like a giant. :)
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