Mateo’s NICU Story

Mateo David Cardona was born on May 26, 2019, at 07:07 AM weighing 1 lb. 3 oz. and  measuring 11.5 inches. His due date was September 19, 2019, but our little boy could not wait  that long and made his appearance in this world at 23 weeks and 3 days gestation. The day he  was born was the scariest and happiest day of my life because my prayers had been answered, I  had a living baby boy, but I knew the chances of his survival were minimal and the thought of  losing him hurt my soul.  

Prior to conceiving Mateo, my husband and I, endured a heartbreaking missed miscarriage in  August of 2017 after years of trying to conceive with no success. Only two months after  receiving the best news we had received to date, at a regular checkup, we were told that our baby no longer had a heartbeat and that I had to induce my missed miscarriage at home with  medications. Overcoming the loss of our first pregnancy was a very difficult task that was healed  with the news of Mateo’s pregnancy in January 2019. His pregnancy was beautiful and going  incredibly well until we had our anatomy scan at 20 weeks’ gestation. In that scan everything  that had to do with Mateo’s health and growth in the womb was perfect. We were about to be  dismissed from the anatomy scan appointment when the technician realized that he hadn’t  measured one of the important markers of the appointment, my cervix. We were told that I had a  cervical insufficiency causing my cervix to measure a lot less than it should at that point in  pregnancy and diagnosed with a short dynamic cervix. I had to begin inserting progesterone pills  daily to try to maintain my cervix shut and quickly began getting progesterone injections. I was  also placed on strict bed rest and was allowed to only leave my bed to go to my doctor’s  appointment, the bathroom, and a quick shower. Although we did everything we were told to do  and were extremely cautious throughout the entire pregnancy we found out about my short  cervix too late causing Mateo to be born too early.  

The day prior to Mateo’s birth I woke up and saw a small amount of pink tinge on the toilet paper after I wiped which made me extremely uncomfortable and caused me to call my high-risk  doctor who suggested we immediately go to the hospital. I panicked because we were counting  down the days to viability, 24 weeks, and we were still 5 days away from making it that far.  Once we got to the hospital, I was directed to the maternity emergency area where I began  trembling from fear. I thought that if my son came early, he wouldn’t be given a chance since we  had not yet 24 weeks but calmed down once I was reassured that they would do everything in  their power to give him a chance if he came early. I was checked for amniotic fluid and told there  was none, an ultrasound scan showed Mateo as healthy as ever and no contractions were  reported; however, my cervix showed to be 1 cm dilated. We were told that I could spend weeks  in that state with the help of extreme hospital bed rest, a hospital bed in a tilted position and the  help of medications. I immediately asked for them to inject me with the steroid that would allow  Mateo’s lungs to mature further since I knew the second dosage was to be given 24 hours later 

and I prayed I’d be able to receive it. I got the first dose but didn’t make it in for the second dose. On that day, we were moved to a maternity suite, where we hoped we’d get to stay for  many days and met the NICU team as well as the doctor on call. It was Memorial Day weekend,  none of our doctors were working, so we were assisted by a doctor from another practice that  covered for our doctors on special days of the year.  

It was around 3:00 AM on May 26, 2019, when I started to feel what I thought were gasses and I  kept calling the nurse to help me position better. The monitors were not picking any contractions and after countless times pushing the call button my nurse decided to ask me where the pain was  

realizing when she touched that I was having contractions. The contractions quickly intensified  and could not be stopped, the on-call doctor was called to the hospital and by the time she got  there and saw me it was too late for me to even stand. I was 10 cm dilated in excruciating pain  and rushed to the OR. My husband was prepped for the emergency c-section, but I was shaking  so much from the pain that they had to put me under general anesthesia and he was unable to be  present for the birth of our son. Once born he was called into the operation room and ran out of there with the doctors as they took our baby boy to NICU number 7, where he spent his entire life and where we spent the most difficult part of ours. We rented a hospital room after being discharged and spent the 11 days that Mateo was with us at the hospital with him.  

After Mateo was born, he showed us he had a lot of strength by removing cables, that he had the character of a fighter by kicking and hitting each technician or doctor who touched him, that he did not like to give up when he returned after they revived him and even recovered after having his two lungs collapsed, that he had a strong character by knitting his eyebrows every time he  was angry when his bed was changed or every time he purposely urinated on his nurses, that he loved breast milk when he smiled and raised his eyebrows to show his happiness every time it was given to him and that he knew mommy and daddy were around showing his fight even more when he listening to us or felt us by grabbing our finger or pushing our fingers with the little toes on his feet.  

Mateo, our tiny warrior, didn’t live day by day but rather hour by hour, every minute was a gain  and every day a joy. From the moment he was born he began to show us his greatness and  beautiful way of being. The most impressive thing was seeing such purity and courage in such a  small being. In his 11 days of life, my baby went through much more than I have in my lifetime  and at no moment did he show the desire to stop fighting to stay with us. Our Mateo helped us  grow a lot and gave us a lot of joy from the moment we found out that his heart was beating  inside my belly until we told him that mommy and daddy were letting him rest and he let his  little heart stop beating.