Your baby is on life support (ECMO)

Mateo went into open-heart surgery at 9:15 am. The surgery was 11 hours long. As we waited we made a scrapbook and enjoyed hundreds of pictures that we had printed of Mateo. We remembered all of the happy times that we had with him, and his beautiful smile filled our hearts as we anxiously watched the time tick by. Our surgeon came to the waiting room and said that he had good news and bad news. The surgery was successful, although there had been complications and Mateo was now on something called ECMO, which is essentially a type of bypass machine, or life support. The ECMO machine was supporting both his heart and lungs. As we walked into the room to see Mateo he did not look like our baby, he was twice his size, filled with fluid and so puffy we didn’t recognize him. This was the hardest moment of our journey. Mateo was very critical and we needed a miracle for him to be able to get off this machine and be able to have his lungs and heart work on their own. He also had an open chest. As we saw our baby’s heart beating through his open chest, Kyle and I hugged each other and prayed for a miracle.

Mateo, our little hero, despite all odds was able to get off the ECMO machine within 4 days, had his chest closed within another 3 days and after a month and a half in the CCCU we were able to go back up to a regular paediatric floor. Mateo continued to improve but after this surgery he refused to take a bottle or eat by mouth at all. So we decided along with the team that if we wanted to go home he would have to get a g-tube. Mateo went in for his g-tube surgery in April, and on May 1st we were discharged home!

To help Mateo along his journey go to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/hakuna-mateo