Kare and I have had some time to gather our thoughts and we wanted to say a couple of things to our friends on here who have been so generous and supportive. Bear with us for the lengthy post but we wanted to share our story for those conc
erned. Our son Devan Michael Higginbotham was born on 11/28/12 at Virginia Hospital Center. He was born prematurely at 24 weeks weighing only 1lb 6oz. Our eldest son Logan and I were about to leave for Morgantown to celebrate my dad's birthday, who shared it with Devan, when Karen called me saying she was having contractions. We both cried knowing full well the complications of bringing a child into this world that young. When we got to the hospital at 300pm and found out that we would indeed be parents again, we were terrified and anxious. Nothing can prepare you for something like that, so we prayed for God's strength and grace. They performed an emergency c-section and delivered our second son at 5:02pm. They were able to rescucitate Devan, get him stable, and transferred him to the NICU while the OB surgeons tended to Karen. Looking through the window as they performed the C-section was a terribly agonizing feeling. Two teams of 7 people had my entire life in their hands. One team worked on my wife to perform an emergency surgery while another team worked on keeping my son alive. Words can't describe the feelings of helplessness while I stood behind a glass window looking at everything as it unfolded. As they transported my son from surgery to the NICU, I got to see him for the first time. The feeling of knowing I was a father again filled me with happiness, and was the first happy feeling I had since finding out Kare was going into labor. The doctors told me that my son had a better chance of surviving if he was at Children's National Medical Center, so they transferred him there. I was able to see Kare for 20 minutes before I had to leave and be with my new son at Children’s. When Kare found out that he was going to Children’s, I can't even imagine what was going through her mind knowing she had worked for two years on the same unit as where our son was going to be a patient . All those premature babies she saw everyday so fragile and small knowing that one of them would be ours. I stayed with him the entire time hoping and praying for the best. I've never prayed so hard for anything in my life. The pain Kare had to go through knowing she had to recover from surgery and not being able to see her son must have been unbearable. She eventually was discharged early so that she could go see Devan on 11/30. When we were both together, the doctors gave us news that no parent should ever have to hear. The doctors came in and told us that the ultrasound they performed on his head showed a grade 4 intra-ventricular hemorrhage (IVH) on both sides of his brain. The bleeding caused swelling which started to reach the back part of his brain. The blood transfusions he was receiving were bleeding into the brain and they started to go into the surrounding brain tissue. Hearing this news from the doctor was crippling. The thoughts that race through your mind are something that no parent should ever imagine - “Will my son die?” "Can he live a normal life if so?" The terrible thing about premature babies is there is little you can do. They are so young that performing procedures or surgery on a baby that small would certainly kill them. Even the diaper change I gave him made him so irritated that his vitals went up and down. The doctors try to give you answers but you already know the answers because they wear it on their faces. Stats like 50/50 survival rate and 90% brain damage are thrown at you. Eventually, there comes a point in a person's life where you have to make a decision that will affect you for the rest of your life - a decision where you can't even imagine preparing for. Kare and I prayed so hard for God to give us guidance and show us what He wanted. We asked our priest, our doctors, our family for guidance, but it all came back to the decision Kare and I would have to make that God wanted. As we prayed and thought about it, God kept calling us to let His will be done. We decided to take Devan off life support and let him go with God. I can’t describe the grief and despair we had coming to this decision, but also the peacefulness knowing that this is what God wanted. They took him off his ventilator, took the tubes and tape and lines off of him and gave him to us. It was the first time Kare and I got to hold our son. I’ve never been so happy and sad knowing that the first time holding our son would be the last. We lost our second born son Devan Michael on Sunday, December 2nd at 4:31pm. He was five days old. The main reason we wrote this was not to talk about our losses and grief but to thank everyone that has supported us through this tough time. Kare and I cried more times from the outpouring of love and support from our friends and family, than the grief and pain these last two weeks have caused. All the prayers, thoughts, donations, gifts, emails, phone calls, texts, and visits have been overwhelming. The pain has been trumped by the love and generosity from you, our family and friends. This is truly God's love you have been giving us. There is no way to bring back our son, but he has strenghtened our family more than ever through God's love. Our friends and family have made this bearable. Everyone that has helped us in our darkest hour has shown the full extent of the human spirit. God bless you all for everything you have done. We wouldn't be able to go on without you. In loving memory of our son, Devan Michael. You will always be loved.
.JPG)
