Pray for Adam

Hey y'all, Charlotte here!

Thank you so much for your emails & texts & prayers - I went a little crazy last week but I am feeling so much better. So is Maisie. This lakehouse is wonderful, and I've sent the owners about a million cards and emails thanking them for allowing us to use it. We've spent our days baking cookies and brownies, enjoying Mom's amazing cooking, giving each other manicures and pedicures, playing Animal Crossing and Sports Resort on the old Wii, playing tag and hide-and-seek and board games and doing puzzles and making crafts...it's just been awesome. We're planning on staying here as long as two weeks, and Kaitlynn's mom Norah has gotten her school to let her off the hook in terms of attendance and assignments. She's doing a little bit online, but mostly she's just relaxing with the rest of us.

The hope was for none of us to have to set foot in a hospital or doctor's office for the next two weeks at least, but of course it didn't work that way. I got a call from Dr. Phillips, the GP at her main hospital, who asked that Maisie check into a nearby hospital for a night to have some blood work and an MRI done. While we were there she had two hours to herself and we decided to go to the maternity ward and look at the babies. Not all hospitals allow this but thankfully this one did. While we were there we met a woman named Anna whose son Adam is clinging to life.

He was born at 19 weeks, four inches long and weighing 4 ounces. He had to be birthed by emergency c-section because he developed a tumor around his teeny neck and it would have killed him.

As it is, he might die anyway. He's now 3 weeks old (which is like 22 weeks gestation), six inches long, and weighs 10 ounces. As you may or may not know, babies born at under twenty-six weeks gestation are not typically considered viable, which makes Adam a miracle. The doctors wanted to let Anna and her husband George take Adam home to die, but she refused to let them abandon her son. She fought and argued until they launched into action, using every means available to save his tiny life.

He breathes with a CPAP machine and every ten minutes his heart skips a few beats. He's purple from head to toe and has tubes poking out every which way. Three times already his doctors have told his mother that he has hours to live. And every time, he's pulled through.

Please everyone, pray for Adam. He needs all the support he can get.

And on that note, Right now the one thing I'm thankful for more than anything is my daughter's life. I'm thankful for my amazingly strong mother who has stuck with me and Maisie through it all, I'm thankful that I survived, but mostly, I'm thankful that Maisie survived. She had about as much of a chance as Adam does, and she made it. I think he can too.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pray for Adam!