Flint Ridge Gardner - Post 1

Wednesday, January 26th at 2:10 am my water broke.  We made our way to Akron General Hospital.  I was 31 weeks and 5 days pregnant with Flint.  12 weeks was the first we learned the Flint had some issues.  Nothing was clear till about 14 and 16 weeks when we had follow up appointments where they diagnosed Flint with a serious complex that was not compatible with life.  The Doctors prepared us with news that most of these cases are still born or pass away right after being born.  From that point on.... we tried to prepare our minds for the worse and hope for the best.  Praying that God's will would be done and that the decisions we would have to make would be CRYSTAL clear.  For almost 20 weeks we prayed, cried, laughed, hoped, wondered when we would meet Flint.  When we went to the hospital we quickly learned that little Flint was in no hurry to come out.  He was breached and even though my water broke... I was not going into labor.  They monitored me for the first 24 hours and then allowed some of the items to be disconnected from me so that I could get some sleep.  I was at 0 cm dilation on 12:15pm Thursday when they started to get my body going for labor.  When they started this process they informed us that this process would take about 24 hours.  So we prepared ourselves to meet our little boy sometime on Friday.  When the Dr. came back in around 4:15 pm on Thursday to give me my next dose of meds I was dilated to 4 cm.  They could not believe how quickly it progressed and began to prepare for me for labor.  Even though I was fully dilated at 7:15pm... we waited for Baby Flint to descend until we started to deliver.  At 9:40 pm Baby Flint made it into this world and even though we was already in Jesus arms... we still got to meet him for the First time.  

To help clarify Baby Flint Conditions:  From his head to the bottom of his rib cage he was normal.  At the bottom of his rib cage he had no skin.  All of his organs from his rib cage down were exposed through a clear sack.  (As if you were looking at the inside of your body through a window)  They were all in this sack, but enlarged.  The liver was also in this sack.  The lungs were small and the heart took up over 50% of the rib cage.  He had skin on his back all the way to his bottom.  But he had a large 7 cm meningocele coming out of his back on the lower half of his body by his bottom.  His clear stomach was actually connected to my placenta.  No umbilical cord.  His left leg had a club foot and was down correctly.  His right leg/foot was position up and we never saw it.  When Flint was born the Dr's were able to show us Flint before they cut him from the placenta.  They were not sure what if the clear sack would break open once they cut Him from me.   So they were not able to hand Flint to me right away.  They separated him from me and took him to a little table to wrap him up.  Then they handed Flint to us to hold.  What they had diagnosed our baby to have was all correct.  The Dr's said it was even worse then what they had diagnosed.  It was an amazement to all the Flint had lived inside of me as long as he did.  He was a little Fighter!  We let the specialist take Flint and view him.  (Which we had agreed to ahead of time).  When they brought Flint back to us he was all bandaged up and we felt more comfortable holding him. 

Sam went and got Kora from the waiting room.  She was excited to see the baby.  Even though she could sense that we were not excited.  Then our parents and family came back to see baby Flint and to weep with us.  Even though we were told that he would not make it.... we just wanted Flint to be alive.  He was perfect in every way to us.  We were able to hold and talk to Flint as long as we wanted to.  The hospital brought in this little basket for him to lay in.  Even though Flint never took a breath of life... we are so proud of him.