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| Cassidy Beatrice Marie Robichaud Born: October 5, 2000 Recieved her wings: October 6, 2000 |
| As the world celebrated the new millenium my son Cody and myself joined my husband in Grafenwoehr, Germany where he was stationed with the Army. We were expecting to be there for three years. We would be missing our family and friends but we would at last be together as a family after being seperated for over seven months. In March we discovered that I was pregnant. We were very happy. Our son would be three by the time that Cassie was born in November. We met our German doctor, Dr. Ponnath and he seemed nice if a little brisk. We had ultrasounds every visit because that is what the germans do. We got to 'see' Cassie on every visit and we brought Cody along to 'see' his baby sister. Every visit Dr. Ponnath would say " She is going to be pretty like mama and strong like papa" We went out and bought all of the necessary things for a new baby, crib,changing table, clothes, bottles, you name it we had it. We picked a name for her, Cassidy Marie Robichaud At around eight months everybody started commenting how I had just "popped out" I hadn't been showing that much until then. I started feeling very sore. I wasn't getting much sleep because I was so sore. I continued working though because we needed the money. I went to the doctors the end of September without Joey because he was on a mission for work and Cody was at the babysitters. I was about 33 weeks at this time. I had my ultrasound and he didn't say much just kept looking and looking. He sat me up and said " It looks like you have too much amniotic fluid, I'm calling the hospital in Earlangen for you to have a special ultrasound by a specialist" That was it, the next moment I was out the door on my way back home. All the way home, I was thinking, What just happened? What does that mean? I picked up my son from the baby sitters and went home. That night my husband called to check on us and to see how the doctors visit went and I told him that he needed to take the following Monday off and take me to the specialist in Earlangen, which was about three hours away from us. He had questions but of course I couldn't answer them. The weekend was very long and drawn out. We decided to change her name to Cassidy Beatrice Marie Robichaud, Beatrice because of her great grandmother who had passed away the previous summer. She was a fighter and we were hoping that with that name it would be true. Monday morning we were up and gone pretty early. We finally found the place after about 45 minutes of wondering around not being able to ask directions very well because of the language barrier. We went in to our appointment and the doctor told us that the reason for the excess amniotic fluid could be because she wasn't swallowing to recycle the fluid or Dr. Ponnath could be wrong and that there was a lot of amniotic fluid but not too much, We prayed for the last option! He did the ultrasound and discovered what we feared. There was something wrong with Cassie. He showed us that part of her brain was not developed, part of her heart had not formed and her esophogus was not connected to her stomach. He asked if I had been feeling any contractions and I said yes. I thought that they were just braxton hicks contractions. He said because of the excess fluid, there was so much pressure and I was having contractions because of it. That was it. He didn't explain what it could be, what her chances were or anything. We left there just thinking that she has several severe malformations. They gave us some information on what they had found for us to give to our doctor. It was all in German, except for one paragragh in English explaining her deformities and at the end it said suspected Trisomy 18. What was this? Nobody has said anything about Trisomy 18. We had never even heard of it before. We went home and called our family and friends. Those phone calls were so hard to make. I broke down crying each and every time. I blamed myself for Cassie's problems. I didn't eat right, I had too much caffeine, even though I had cut back, I forgot some of my vitamins, everything I had done wrong! We went to see Dr. Ponnath and we asked what Cassie's survival rate was and he hesitated. My husband asked "Is it 50/50?" and the coward said yes! He knew what the survival rate was for Trisomy 18 and he still said yes. We told him that we wanted to go home and he was more then willing to forge papers saying that I was 32 weeks pregnant so that we could fly. We left Germany forever two days later. That flight was a nightmare. The three of us couldn't sit together because of the emergency tickets so my husband sat with Cody and I sat alone. I had panic attack apon take off because I was so scared that I would end up having the baby during the 9 hour flight from Frankfurt,Germany to Boston I was denying to myself and to anybody that asked that I was in labor. My stomach hurt because of the amniotic fluid, I had contractions because of that and there was the braxton hicks, I had back pain because I had worked so hard before the flight to clean up the apartment and to pack all of our clothes.There was no way that I was admitting that I was in labor. It was a very long flight but thankfully we made it. We were suppose to catch a connecting flight to Bangor, Maine, but I couldn't take another takeoff and landing so we rented a car and arrived in Old Town, Maine at around 5AM at my mother-in law's house. We rested for a little while and spent the rest of the day catching up with family and friends. Later on that night, I guess I wasn't hiding the pain I was in any longer from my husband and my mother in law because they brought me to the hospital and I was checked in. We told them what was wrong and they called a specialist in. My contractions were coming about every four minutes and they gave me something to try to stop them because there was a chance that they were going to fly me to Portland. The stuff they gave me made me feel awful and it did nothing to stop the contractions. While we were all waiting for Cassie to be born, Cassie decided to play games with our nurse, Megan. She would swim away from the fetal monitor and Megan would spend many minutes trying to find her again. When Megan let go of it for a few minutes Cassie would swim back to that spot but if she touched it again she would swim away. This was the same nurse that got the biggest kick out of trying to read my german medical records. We had the on call priest come in and say a prayer over Cassie and we told him that we wanted to have her baptised as soon as possible after delivery. I prayed to God to do what he had to do but at least let me hold her and tell her that I loved her and to tell her goodbye if that was his will. Cassie was born at 3 AM and needed help to breath as soon as she came out. I got to see her before they brought her to the NICU and she was beautiful. And she was so tiny. She was only 3lbs 3 oz when she was born. That made me so mad. Because she was that tiny and Dr. Ponnath couldn't tell during all of those ultrasounds that she was so small! She was brought to the NICU and put on a ventilator. After I was cleaned up, we went in to see her and she was baptised and I believed confirmed, my memory is a little hazy. Later on that day, my husband brought my son into see her and he said" Hi Cassidy, I love you, I'll see you later" Friends and family stopped by all day and all day the next. We were visited by the genetics doctor and he finally explained what Trisomy 18 was. Trisomy 18 is when there is an extra 18th chromosome. It causes severe birth defects, i.e. congenital anomalies of heart, lungs, diaphram, kidneys and ureters, small gestational age, small jaw and mouth and difficulty feeding, just to name a few. Some children are born with more of these then others so the survival rate veries. To learn more about T18 and to see some of the precious angels that I know Cassie is up there playing with, click on the links below. It is a wonderful site, full of information. The NICU staff were very nice and supportive. They gave us a private room so that we could have some privacy, we could have as many guests visit Cassie as we wanted and they let us have a radio in there to play music. |
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| What is Trisomy 18? |
| Pictures of Cassie's Playmates |
