Jackson, Isaac

I was 19 weeks pregnant with a boy when I found out he had Diaphragmatic Hernia. When I had my 19 week scan, they said it was on the left-hand side, and when he was born they would have to operate to move it down. They told us there was an 80% chance he would make it. So we continued with the pregnancy.

I went into labour on the July 13, 2004 and went to King Edward Memorial Hospital. They told me to delivery natural to increase his chances of living, but I had to have a caesarean for fetal distress. When he was born they took him up to intensive care and put him on oxygen to help his lungs. Then they did an ultrasound and found that he had Diaphragmatic Hernia on both sides, and he also had hypoplastic left heart and anal atresia. So with all his problems he had no chance of survival. He lasted eight hours and then he passed away.

After what happened it took along time to get over it. It took me a while to even think about having sex again. Then we sat down and discussed if we should try again or not. We gave it one more shot. Now we have a 4-month-old, healthy baby boy. We are really happy. He will never replace the one we lost, but we were pleased to know we have a healthy, happy baby after being told we had a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of this happening again.

We also have a healthy 3-year-old girl, and she loves her brother. The hardest thing will be to tell them both that they have a brother and he passed on.

We called him Isaac. He will be in our hearts and our memories forever.


Written by Isaac’s mom, Jennifer Jackson (Australia)
2005