Thursday, June 7, 2012

Colton's Marchers: Walking to honor their son, Colton

Thank you to Rebecca and Brian for sharing this very heartfelt and emotional account of losing their second son, Colton. It is very inspiring to read about families who choose to help others during a very difficult time in their own lives. Our families walk for many reasons and each story reminds us of why the work of the March of Dimes is so important. Thank you to ALL of our Family Teams!

Our team is walking in the March for Babies for the first time, in memory of our son Colton, who was stillborn on January 17, 2012. Our story starts two days prior on January 15 when after not remembering feeling Colton's movements the night before, and definitely not feeling him move that morning (the time he was most active) we called our Doctor and headed for the Hospital. 


Once we arrived we headed up to the Maternity ward, where they took us in to monitor Colton's heartbeat. After trying to find his heartbeat for what felt like forever, even though it was only about 3 to 4 minutes, we knew we were about to get the news that no expectant parent wants to hear. Colton no longer had a heartbeat. This was confirmed with two subsequent ultrasounds.
It was the most devastating news that we could have received, especially since the Tuesday prior at his most recent appointment his heartbeat was strong and all seemed to be ok. 

Colton is our second child, he has an older Brother named Mason, who we had to leave with our family so that we could go back to the hospital to induce labor. It took from 6pm Sunday night until 9am Tuesday morning before Colton arrived. 

Colton was born at 27 weeks gestation.  He weighed 2lbs 14oz and was 16.5 inches long.

When he was delivered, the cord was around his neck, though they did not commit to that as the reason for this loss. They ran numerous tests while we were in the hospital, and after he was born... all of which came back negative. 

We will never get answers as to what happened that caused this loss, which is heartbreaking. We opted not to have an autopsy performed. He was our perfect little Angel, and we couldn't bring ourselves to put him through that.

It has been a rough five months, with waves of emotion, ups and downs.

We decided that doing the March for Babies was a good way to help in the healing process, and it's effect is two fold. First it is a great way to honor our son Colton... Second, raising money for this amazing cause will hopefully help other parents/expecting parents not to have to go through the heartache and pain of losing a baby. Nobody should ever have to feel this way, and hopefully someday we can get to the point where nobody ever will again. 

Thank you for taking the time to read our story, and best of luck to everyone in their fundraising efforts. 
Brian and Rebecca Hayes
Rebecca, Mason and Brian Hayes


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