More Henry pictures and Henry's birth story!

I wanted to post some more pictures of Henry, and I also wanted to post the story of Henry's birth and NICU stay. I figured the best way to do the latter was to post the letter my husband wrote to the SSPX about it. I also want to do this to first, give thanks to God for what He did for our family and second, to encourage devotion to the Archbishop and prayers for the success of his cause of canonization.

Henry a few hours after we said the prayer to Archbishop Lefebrve. They had cut his oxygen, CPAP force, etc, in half but had not removed the tube, so it gives you an idea of all the stuff he had. He had also improved enough to where I could hold him for the first time since a few hours after his birth. This was 10/3, a few hours before his baptism.

Henry the very next day, after the removal of the CPAP, chest tube, IV, etc. He even had his oral-gastric tube moved to his nose so he could nurse better.

This is Henry in his baptismal gown at 4 weeks. I got him back in it when I saw the pics of him in the gown that I took the day that we did the rest of the baptismal ceremonies, 10/15, didn't come out.



Phillip, Xavier, Gianna, Henry, Asher and Kieran 10/15, day of the baptismal ceremonies.

To whom it may concern.

I am writing to tell you of the miracle that my family received through the intercession of His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. My name is Rocky______. My wife’s name is Sara ___
____. We attend the St. X chapel in Oregon and have since 1/25/2004, about two years after our conversion to Catholicism. We have six children ranging from 9 to newborn. It is the newborn we are writing about.

On September 30, 2010 my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Henry Louis, by Cesarean Section. The C Section was due to an unstable lie. This means he was not engaged in the pelvis nor would he remain head down; most of the last few weeks he was sideways in the uterus. He had been head down but wouldn’t stay that way, so turning him was pointless, and it was unsafe to induce since he was so far above the pelvis. We agreed the safest thing to do was a c-section. The procedure went as planned, and for the next 45 minutes it seemed as though we had a perfectly normal healthy, bright pink, screaming little boy. However, soon after things began to turn. One of the nurses noticed that he had slight retractions (where the ribs show during each breath like when you’re sucking in). The child was placed on an oxygen monitor, and readings that continued in the low 70’s were followed by grunting, and breaths per minute of over 160. The child was in severe respiratory distress and admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care.

After several hours of lab tests, x-rays, and eventually an echocardiogram, it was determined that Henry had Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension. Here is a short paragraph on what that is taken online from the University of Washington Academic Medical Center. “Persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN) is the result of elevated pulmonary vascular resistance to the point that venous blood is diverted to some degree through fetal channels (i. e. the ductus arteriosus and foramen ovale) into the systemic circulation and bypassing the lungs, resulting in systemic arterial hypoxemia.” In Henry’s case this was caused by a failure of the patent ductus arteriosus to close normally- this normally happens within minutes of birth, or it may take a few days but is usually asymptomatic in full term babies. What was unusual in his case is that even though he was a full-term baby he developed symptoms like a premature baby would (ed: there is absolutely no way he was premature, his due date being verified not only by numerous ultrasounds but by my charting and the onset of my morning sickness ). The cause in full-term babies without other heart defects is unknown, but it occurs more often in c-sections. It is believed that something in the labor process, particularly second stage labor, tells the baby’s heart and lungs to be ready to be born and this doesn’t happen in a c-section.

The treatment for Henry started with oxygen. This alone was not enough. Then they put him on a CPAP to give oxygen and force. He was then treated by giving him surfactant (this is administered by temporarily placing a tube down his throat). This also was not successful, so then Nitrous Oxide was administered at 20 parts per million by use of a CPAP machine at a force of 7. Things still did not improve. The next step was a ventilator with sedation, and then a transfer to the Legacy Immanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Over the course of three days his situation was stable, but not better. Even a chest tube had know been added for drainage due to an air bubble under the lung. We couldn’t hold him- we could barely touch him because any stimulation would cause his stats to be affected.

OF course many prayers were said during this time, but I really felt inspired to pray to His Grace Archbishop Lefebvre. During the last night of the pregnancy, before the c-section, my wife had asked for his intercession regarding the unstable lie as they were to do an ultrasound immediately before surgery to see if he had changed position and labor could be induced instead. She had even offered to add the name “Marcel” as a second middle name! She told me this as we were getting ready to go to the hospital and I remember thinking that we would defiantly need his intercession, but not to avoid a Cesarean section. God’s answer on that was no. Both my wife and I felt that not only was she to have a Cesarean section, but that we were in for a really long haul of some sort. We felt this intently enough that we prepared three or four different backups for my mother in law who lives with us and helps out often with the children. She has many health conditions, and we knew that long term care of the children would not be physically something that she could handle. Thank God for our parish, who was wonderful through all this.

At this point, it is now the morning of Sunday October 3^rd. It was really beginning to look like the ventilator was in store, and my wife was particularly devastated because she was being discharged and not only was she leaving without her baby, there had been no improvement. I told my wife that I wished I had some picture of Archbishop Lefebvre. She stated that she had the holy card with the prayer she used during the pregnancy with her at the hospital. I asked her for it. I prayed the prayer on the back over the child, and told His Grace that if through his intercession God would heal this child, and get us out of here tomorrow, that I would submit the miracle for his canonization. We then taped the picture to his crib. Within 2 hours the Nitrous Oxide, oxygen, CPAP force, and heart medication he was on was cut in half. He was taken off of total IV nutrition and began receiving breast milk through an oral-gastric tube. At the recommendation of one of our priests we still had him baptized, especially since my wife was being discharged that day and it was possible that there would be periods of time we would not be able to be up there with Henry. By the next morning everything related to the heart and lungs was removed. They still did some jaundice treatment, but it was something that could have been done outpatient and probably would not even have been done had there not been extra risks to the jaundice due to the lack of oral nutrition and the nitrous oxide therapy. The turnaround was so sudden and unexpected that every doctor in the NICU came in on their own time to see this child. Dr. L stated he was like a totally different child. Dr. G stated that this was a very unexpected and instantaneous turn around, and Dr. B said was “almost miraculous”. Although we were not able to come home until 10/7/2010, (exactly one week- we had been told to expect a minimum of two weeks; and that was an optimistic estimate that held if we weren’t transferred), no other treatments were administered. His improvement was so evident that they didn’t even bother to do a repeat echocardiogram to verify that the PDA had closed and the pulmonary pressures had returned to normal.

We were not able to leave quickly like we had asked for, but his healing was so instantaneous that they wanted to further monitor the child. The hospital also has various regulations that had to be followed (realistically, waiving those would have been in some ways a greater miracle then the healing!). For example: A 24-hour period of observation following the removal of a chest tube, 24-hours of oral feedings without any use of the tube (although he started nursing Monday, it took him a couple of days to recover his energy enough to be able to feed completely by mouth.) There was a hearing screening and a safety check to watch the child breathe in a car seat, etc. As aggravating as it was to stay after a healing had so obviously occurred, it was in some ways comforting to mom as well. She didn’t have to take a child home that had three days of severe respiratory distress and panic every time he got the hiccups or his chest appeared to rise a little higher than normal. It also allowed help with nursing while he was still getting his energy back. Words cannot describe how I feel writing this letter. My family witnessed a miracle by the hand of God through the intercession of His Excellency. I also cannot describe the suffering. It was needed. I went to confession soon after we were released, feeling like I had learned so much about myself and family. The miracle was amazing, and I am writing this letter to keep my end of deal, but God’s grace, at least to me, was in the suffering.

Thank you for collecting information for the Canonization of His Excellency. My family will pray for your success. If there is any way we can assist you, our contact info is below. We would also like to know how we could obtain more copies of the holy card with the prayer on it, as Henry’s story has got around and they are now in great demand at our parish, but we only have the one card.

Rocky & Sara

The prayer we prayed: O Jesus, Eternal High priest, who deigned to elevate thy faithful servant Marcel Lefebvre to the episcopal dignity and to grant him the grace of being a fearless defender of the Holy Mass, the Catholic Priesthood, of Thy Holy Church, and of the Holy See, of being a courageous apostle of Thy Kingdom on earth, of being a devoted servant of Thy holy Mother, and of being a shining example of charity, of humility and of all virtues; bestow upon us now, by his merits, the graces we beseech of Thee, so that, assured of his powerful intercession to Thee, we may one day see him elevated to the glory of the altar. Amen.