In 2009 Bart and I found out that we were pregnant, we were overjoyed! My pregnancy progressed along great... no morning sickness hardly any weight gain it was great. In December we went for our 20 week ultrasound to find out if we were going to have a little boy or little girl. The ultrasound technician was having a hard time getting the baby to give up the answer but did notice a couple of things that didn't look quite right. She went to my OB's office and couple of minutes later came back to break the news that we were going to have a baby with an omphalocele. We were in shock! We were brought in Dr. Gautreaus office to discuss what an omphalocele was and what our next step would be. She informed us that we should go see a maternal/fetal specialist. We were scheduled a couple of weeks later... it was a excruciating wait. Finally the day arrived to meet Dr. St Amant and learn everything we could about what was wrong with our little one. After having another ultrasound it was confirmed that our baby would have an omphalocele and possible spina bifida. Dr. St Amant thought there was possibly more to what he was seeing and he also guessed that we were having a boy. He recommended that I have a amniocentesis to rule out any other birth defects/chromosomal such as down syndrome or trisomy 13. We chose to do the amnio and were scheduled to come back for another ultrasound a couple of weeks later. The results came back clear of all chromosomal defects but showed that we were actually having a girl. At our second ultrasound he noticed that our little girl was still in the same position she was in at the last ultrasound. He was afraid this was an indication of bodywall complex, a birth defect where the babies body is attached to the placenta and brings with it being stillborn. He ordered a fetal MRI to rule out bodywall complex, this was just before the Christmas holiday. We would have to wait until after New Years to get the results, again another circumstance of hurry up and wait. Finally the day came that we were called back to Dr. St Amant's office to learn that what our little girl had was in fact not body wall complex but O.E.I.S. complex also known as Cloacal Exstrophy. We were devastated. Bart and I went home in silence not knowing what to say or do. I think we both went through a time of why us, why our baby? Soon though we were trying to learn everything we could about the birth defect and what it brought with it. However, there was not a lot of information out there about O.E.I.S. except for clinical information. Dr. St Amant recommended a surgeon in Baton Rouge for us to go talk to. We made an appointment to meet Dr. Faith Hansbrough and she was very up front with us that Baton Rouge did not have the capabilities to handle a baby with these kind of problems but agreed to look at the baby when she was born. We spent the next several months having ultrasounds every couple of weeks and trying to prepare ourselves for the change about to come in our lives. At 36 weeks I went into labor on March 29th and just minutes after 6 pm Gabrielle Parker Himel arrived in the world via c-section. As soon as Dr. Gautreau delivered Gabby she was whisked off into another room to be assessed and Bart was brought to see her. Moments later she was brought back to me to hold for the first time.
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| Gabbys first picture |
And so the whirlwind began. A doctor from Dr. Hansbroughs office came to the Woman's NICU to look at Gabrielle and determined that they would indeed not be able to handle Gabby's case it was too complicated. They recommended that we head to Children's Hospital New Orleans. When Gabrielle was 3 days old we made the move to Children's and the next day she had her first surgery. The surgery was to close the opening in Gabrielle's abdominal wall that was left because of the omphalocele and make her colostomy. She stayed at the NICU until she was 3 weeks old and eating the proper amount. We continued to do follow up appointments at New Orleans until she was about 1 year old. Dr. Valery that had performed the first surgery said that her colostomy would be permanent. Dr. Eeg and the urology team recommended that we get a second opinion and sent us to see Dr. Pena at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital. We made our first trip to meet with the team of doctors at Cincinnati Childrens Dr. Pena (general surgery/ colorectal expert), Dr. Alam (urology) and Dr. Breech (gynecology). When we arrived they had already had a meeting between the 3 of them and had a concise plan of action to deliver to us. After meeting with the group of doctors we knew that God had brought us here for a reason, we just had to figure out how to continue the plan. With the help of our friends and family we were able to raise money to bring Gabrielle to Cincinnati. In June of 2012 Gabrielle had her omphalocele closed a second time. Being that her omphalocele was so large Dr. Pena was able to close it about 60% of the way. We then spent almost a year waiting for the "big" surgery where they would close her bladder,finish closing her omphalocele and perform an osteotomy surgery on her hips. That surgery was performed by Dr. Alam, Dr. Pan (plastic surgery) and Dr. Melhman (orthopedist) in April of 2013.
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| First family photo |
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| Gabrielle in the NICU @ Womans Hospital prior to transferring to Childrens New Orleans. |
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