Meet Aiden
AIDEN'S STORY
Our twins, Aiden and Jaxon, were born on December 23rd, 2019 by C-section at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Aiden, our CDH baby, was intubated immediately after birth and transferred by connecting bridge to Boston Children’s Hospital with his phenomenal surgeon Dr. Terry Buchmiller, her team, and my husband Sean in tow. Jaxon and I were transferred to a room at Brigham and Women’s where we recovered and began to bond – thinking constantly about his brother Aiden.
A day later, Christmas Eve, I was finally able to be escorted over to BCH to meet my beautiful baby boy Aiden for the first time. Seeing Aiden in the MSICU hooked up to seemingly endless monitors and life support machines was beyond difficult but his nurses and doctors were so reassuring that Aiden was already doing wonderful – so much so that they wanted to perform surgery the following day, Christmas! We didn’t think twice and were so happy they felt Aiden was ready to undergo this major surgery. Christmas morning my husband brought me over to Brigham and Women’s by wheelchair and we watched our beautiful Aiden be observed and prepped for his repair surgery. We walked with him to the OR and kissed him before we sent him off – and then we waited for news on our little Christmas miracle.
The first call from the OR came about 45 minutes later letting us know that the surgeon had made the incision, and everything was going smoothly so far. An hour later we received another call letting us know that surgery was complete, and everything went as planned, Aiden was on his way to recovery! In the weeks to come we were so thrilled with Aiden’s progress. He spent about two weeks on a ventilator and with an NG tube feeding him, eventually doing so well with his breathing that he was taken off the ventilator and placed on a small amount of oxygen. He saved best surprise for his next trick, he started to eat out of a bottle with great success, and after a few days we were told our little ROCKSTAR was ready to move to a regular floor to continue his recovery.
Aiden continued to grow and flourish, finally getting to meet his brother and former roommate at his bedside – quite possibly the sweetest moment of our lives! About a week later we were told that Aiden was ready to come home with us, he did so with his customary flair - breathing and eating on his own and has continued to improve day by day.
Sean and I know we are just one of many families to have dealt with the confusion and heartbreak of a CDH diagnosis and as such are committed to doing our part to find the cause or new preventative/corrective measures. We’ve given blood from ourselves and Aiden to assist ongoing research initiative in hopes to help other families in the future and will continue to support organizations like Fore Hadley!
As told by Cori Brinkley aka Mom
About the Fore Hadley Angels in the NICU Fund
Support and proceeds for the Fore Hadley Angels in the NICU Fund will go towards assisting current and future families like Aiden’s, by providing financial contributions to assist families with the costs associated with extended, long distance travel and living arrangements. Costs that are often a must to ensure the proper specialty care for CDH babies.