Pulse, Jacob

It has been 4 years since my last letter to CHERUBS. I have lost touch with a family I was in contact with-Libby for this I am sorry. Oh, I have visited the site now and then, seeing the list of Angles get longer, reading the new stories. Never in a million years did I think we would go through that hell on earth again. Our baby Cole would almost be 5 yrs old, his big brother Austin is now 7. My heart ached for another child,. Austin wanted a sibling he could play with, not one he could only send balloons to in heaven and leave toys for at the cemetery. When we finally were ready to try to conceive another child, it was not so easy. It took us nearly 3 years to get pregnant. For some odd reason in my mind I knew everything would be fine. I knew God would not put us through that horror again, looking back I guess I thought of it as a “quota”. No family would ever have to loose two babies right?

The nightmare started again. Because of our “history” with Cole having a CDH, right from the beginning, we wanted to see a peri. We started having level II ultrasounds at 7 weeks….everything was fine….or so we thought. In April of 2003 we were told the babies’ heart looked to be “shifted a little to the right”. The first thing we thought was oh my God, here we go again, classic sign of CDH. But we were told that “sometimes, for no reason, organs can be on the opposite side of the body and everything is still ok”. We even had a pediatric cardiologist present for several of the scans and he too said there was no CDH. With high anxiety, my husband and I requested a transfer to the clinic we had gone to with the first time around, in MPLS. The so called specialist here in South Dakota did not think that was necessary and assured us she did not think ck with us and is amazing.

Again I was to deliver in the OR suite. At 1700 I was pushing…..at 1859 Jacob was born by emergency c-section due to unfavorable heart rate decelerations. Again, no crying was heard. The team from Children’s immediately began to work on Jacob. My husband Scot went with him. Before they took him to Children’s Scot came to me and said”. Karli, he is so big, he looks so good”, I will forever remember the look in Scot’s eyes. Because of some complications, I had to stay back for quite a time, but I had family with me and Scot was with Jacob so I felt ok. I remember being in recovery and hearing the phone ring. The NICU had requested I get over there ASAP. My Aunt Gini, nurse Beth and I were met at the doors into the NICU by the neonatologist. Jacob’s ABG levels were pretty bad. He did not even have enough lung tissue to be helped by the high freq vent. So again, we had to make a choice, do things TO him or FOR him. We chose to discontinue life extending measures. We held him, touched him, counted his fingers and toes, talked to him, took pictures of him. He died in my arms just after 11 pm. We stayed there with him, just looking at him, pointing out which one of us he got his nose from….just holding on, never wanting to let him go, but wanting ever so badly to wake up from this nightmare.

Jacob is buried next to his big brother Cole, just down from his Grandpa Bill in the family cemetery.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder how things would be today if all 3 of my boys were here at home with us…..many of those days I still cry for them…..waiting for the day when we are all reunited together in heaven.

When people ask how many children I have, I proudly say I have 3 sons, one is at home with us and the other two are home in heaven, but will forever be in our hearts.


Written by Jacob’s mom, Karli Pulse (California)
2004