I found out I was pregnant towards the end of 2007 shortly after finishing school. The beginning of my pregnancy seemed normal, like any other normal pregnancy would. When I was 20 weeks along I had my first ultrasound, where we were so anxious to find out the sex. Instead we found out that our baby had something wrong. I was referred to high risk specialist in Virginia and continued my care there for the remainder of the pregnancy. They informed me that our baby had CDH. We had no idea what that was and spent the next several months researching and learning everything we could about it. There was, of course, no way of knowing what was going to happen. I had many ultrasounds and stress tests done, nothing seemed to worsen, but nothing was getting better either. I was told I would have to give birth at another hospital in case we needed the ECMO machine. While her father and I were at home putting her crib together in anticipation to bring our sweet girl home, we got the call that the doctors wanted us to travel to Duke to be induced there. I was only 37 weeks, but they did not want to risk me going into labor on my own and not being able to get her the help she might need on time. We got to the hospital on May 14th 2008 around 6pm where they started the induction. I stayed in labor for an entire day before I was dilated enough to start pushing. I was wheeled into the OR to deliver, and after only 30 minutes of pushing this beautiful 5 lb 15 oz little girl was born. She was immediately taken to another room, and we later found out she had to be placed on the ECMO machine, or she would not have made it through the night. She fought for two weeks and did very well until she was able to be weaned off. For the following two weeks she remained on a jet ventilator where she continued to fight. On June 13th, after a month of holding our breaths, we realized that Riley would never be strong enough to endure the surgery that she needed. She was removed from all machines where she peacefully slipped away in her mothers arms around 1:00 AM on June 14th 2008.
-Alex Bundy, Rileys mom. North Carolina
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