story

Most people would say “How much of a story can you truly tell about a child that only lived to be seven and a half months old?” My response to that is “How much time do you have?” Gabi started her fight long before she was even born. See, we found out when Gabi was in the womb that not only did she have Down Syndrome, but she also had an AV Canal defect in her heart. Simply put she only had two chambers to her heart versus four and all of her blue blood was mixing with her red blood. This obviously had a major effect on her breathing and blood flow. Gabi had to go through weekly tests for about that last 3 months in the womb. Until one day there was too much stress on the umbilical chord and she was not getting enough oxygen to her brain and the doctors said “Induce!” So at 4:41am on January 12, 2007 Gabriele Sheridan Acker was born 3 weeks early at an even 6lbs. All of this was the easy part. Gabi was a beautiful little baby and impressive from day one. Babies with DS are typically more difficult to get to latch on to the mother when trying to breast feed. Out of about six babies’s born that day in the hospital, Gabi being the only one with DS; she was the first one to latch on to her mother and start breast feeding. Despite all of our fears of what could happen after she was born and how long we’d have to be in the hospital we were home just like any other “normal” parents in 2 1/2 days. This amazing child found out quickly that she could not allow herself to get too upset other wise the mixture of blood would be all wrong, she wouldn’t be able to breathe, and she would turn blue. So she figured out other ways to communicate with mommy and daddy when she needed something. Of course between us and her big sister she didn’t go too long unattended. Gabi had at least one if not two doctor appointments a week which kept her mommy very busy. We had some issues with feeding and her gaining weight and the doctors were always watching the leakage in her heart. We knew that eventually she was going to have to have heart surgery and with everything the doctors told us, that surgery was suppose to save her life. On June 26th 2007 we took Gabi into the hospital for her surgery. Her mother and I can still see her face so vividly even today as she was being carried away by two nurses to prep her for surgery. We went to the waiting room with family members and waited. Every so often the nurses would come down and let us know that she was doing amazing and everything with the surgery was going so well. They eventually took her to the PICU for recovery and we were going to be able to see our baby again soon. The events following us seeing our baby again can easily be described as the most horrific days any parents should have to endure. We walked in to see her with IV’s in every available part of her body. She had somewhere between 13 and 16 different medications that were pumping in to her body. She was swollen and there were about 8 doctors still in her room, mumbling and watching all of the monitors. We had no idea what was going on until one of the doctors finally told us that her heart rate was too low and they were going to have to rush her back down to the OR to open her chest to relieve the pressure from a swollen heart or she would die! Up behind comes the Chaplin to see if there is anyone we need her to call. Mommy almost collapsed and we were taken to a different room as we had to watch them take our daughter away again! So when we see our daughter again still plugged into a multiple number of machines, she now has a piece of tape over her open chest as we can see it move up and down as her heart beats! In a panic and going crazy with the thought of the possibility of losing our daughter from a surgery that we were told was the most common, and has the highest success rate of being fixed, one that would only keep us in the hospital for 8 to 10 days…HA! Gabi started to get better, machines and medications became less and less as the days went on. We eventually even down to about 2 machines and her ventilator was almost turned off. So the exciting day came when they were going to take her off the ventilator. They did this for only a short time as she was still not strong enough to breathe on her own even though it was almost off. After that happened it was one problem after the next and back came all the medications and machines as if we were starting all over again. The part that troubled the doctors is the fact that nothing Gabi had was unfixable. The problem was they couldn’t fix them all at the same time. They couldn’t find the right mix of drugs to fix all of them. They would fix her dehydration, and then something else would go wrong. They would fix that then she would be dehydrated again. She began to swell up with fluids again to the point that her eyes were swollen shut. Our last resort was dialysis which we were told based on how swollen she was could kill her, but if we didn’t do it she would probably die too. So we did the Dialysis and it started to work, there was no rush of fluids. Then other things began to go wrong, and Gabi had finally told us that she just could not fight all that was going wrong with her body any more. The medications and machines were operating her body and they were all at max capacity, meaning they were doing all the work. We called all the family and friends to come be with us as we held her in our arms and waited for her to get her angel wings. On August 20th, 2007 at 12:50AM, Gabriele Sheridan Acker returned to heaven with her wings. Gabi, fought from before day one in this world, and worked so hard for the last 2 months of her life to continue and be with us. Unfortunately that was just not God’s plan for this amazing little girl. I pray no one has to experience all that we have gone through, but we know that it does happen all the time all over the world. What Gabi’s fight to stay alive and her time with us has given us and our entire family a completely different perspective on life and people! Adults and children with disabilities we now see as these amazing people that fight so hard to survive. We cherish the time we have with each other and our other children knowing that at any second it could be our last. Gabi only lived for seven and a half months but she has taught us and so many others such valuable lessons that we can not keep it to ourselves. So we started Gifts of Gabi’s Grace to help other families that have had to go through a similar situation, but may not have the financial or family support that we did. We have to take the time to try and show people what Gabi taught us. We want to make sure when people think things are too hard, and it’s not worth fighting, to remember Gabi. When you are arguing with a spouse over something that is so insignificant, remember Gabi. When your kids are getting on your last nerve and annoying you to death, be happy they are there to do that, and remember Gabi. If we could all fight, love, appreciate and smile like a little girl that was only seven and half months old, imagine what this world could be like! This is just a short summary compared to the full details of Gabi’s life that we have posted on her blog. The link to the blog below will take you to January of 2007, the beginning of our story. On the bottom right you’ll see all the dates and you can read the entire story. Please click the button on the right to be connected directly to our blog!

Arrived from Heaven January 12, 2007 Returned to Heaven August 20, 2007