Monique Goldring decided to take her 8-month-old daughter off life support back in April and prepared to say goodbye to her first child.
In what can be described as a miracle, her child survived and her family is set to celebrate her first birthday August 25.
via CNN:
“I still have my baby with me,” she said. “I didn’t think I would be able to see that milestone.”
Phoenix was born with a heart defect called double outlet right ventricle, which means her heart can’t properly circulate oxygen around her body. To save her life, doctors performed two of four palliative surgeries she needs and put a shunt in her heart when she was 2 months old.
After being taken off life support, Phoenix breathes with the help of a nasal cannula that provides supplemental oxygen.
At 7 months old, Phoenix started bleeding profusely from her nose. During the drive to the emergency room she turned blue and stopped breathing.
“I knew that she was gone,” Goldring remembered.
The sudden cardiac arrest left her daughter with significant brain damage, so she stayed in the hospital on life support for nearly a month. Goldring asked doctors to remove the ventilator that helped Phoenix breathe after seeing how “tired” she was, she said.
She watched and waited for six hours after Phoenix was taken off life support, the time doctors said they expected it would take for her to die. But six hours came and went, and the infant was still fighting, she said.
“From that point on, she just continued to thrive,” her mother said.
This warms our heart!
