SETH, THE SURVIVOR

by Sericka Sterling

Nothing ever prepares you for the pain and devastation of losing a child.

Ioften heard of parents losing their children and couldn’t help but imagine how that would feel.

In my 27th, week of labour, on May 10, 2017, I was admitted to the hospital due to complications. Two days later, I went into labour with my triplet boys. Knowing that triplets rarely get to full-term, we were hoping to make it to 33 weeks.

All efforts to stop my labour proved futile and the doctors, due to the high risk, tried to have me airlifted to a hospital overseas. This too proved futile as I was battling multiple complications at the time.

Once I went into labour, a paediatrician explained that the chances of all my children surviving were slim. Being born prematurely, their bodies would be underdeveloped and the hospital would not have enough medical equipment to save them all.

After 16 hours of labour, I was told that three ventilators were found and the doctors decided to deliver my babies via an emergency c-section. However, they had to do the surgery without blood on hand since the blood bank had none available.

Our babies and I were blessed enough to survive the operation. Born May 12, 2017, Adam, Eli and Seth were all alive and in the NICU. I thought this was God’s indication that all was going to be okay.

Eli, the strongest, was able to breathe on his own for 24 hours but was placed on the ventilator thereafter. He only lived for 5 days. We saw him active and alert, a few hours before he died. The news of his death was gut-wrenching, as he died before we could get to the hospital.

That’s the night that the reality of our helplessness set in.

Adam, the firstborn, went through a very rough 7 weeks in the NICU. His weeks were marked by illness after illness, over 24 blood transfusions and multiple close calls. The doctors finally explained to us that there was nothing else they could do for him. He passed away on June 30, 2017. Unlike Eli, we got to spend his last moments with him, still praying for a miracle.

Seth, our survivor, spent 4 months in the NICU. He overcame sepsis, meningitis, Klebsiella, jaundice, pneumonia, among other illnesses and finally made it home with us.

During my 4 months in the NICU, I met other preemie parents, all equally devastated. We all pulled together to keep each other sane. I saw the plight of the doctors and nurses, having to operate with a shortage of resources. I met parents who lost babies to prematurity, not because they couldn’t live, but because the hospital simply did not have the resources to care for them. I realized how commonplace this situation is and how ill-equipped Jamaica is for such occurrences.

Out of this experience, The Preemie Foundation of Jamaica was born to be the voice of our premature babies and their families. Our mandate is to: solicit and provide funding for medical equipment for NICUs, medical training for NICU staff, funding of research into prematurity with the hopes of minimizing its occurrence, a support group for parents with a child in the NICU or who have lost a child to prematurity and financial support for parents with high medical bills.

The loss of my children has left such a profound sense of grief that will never truly go away. But I’ve made the choice not to stay broken and silent, but to be fearless and the change I want to see.

Help The Preemie Foundation of Jamaica to raise awareness by following us on social media (@thepreemiefoundationjm), attending our fundraisers and events and donating to our cause. You can email us at preemiefoundationjamaica@gmail.com