MEET AVERY!

“I have learned that my son is the strongest fighter I have ever met.”

Hayley, Avery’s mom, described her pregnancy with Avery as uneventful and beautiful. Avery was born at a community hospital, and “when he arrived, he was absolutely perfect. I held him and loved him. I was just overwhelmed with love.”

However, complications soon arose. “While nursing Avery for the first time, he began to choke and aspirate, and his oxygen levels dropped. The doctors and nurses originally thought that it was due to him still having some amniotic fluid still in there. Over the course of the next few hours everything changed. Every time I nursed him, he would aspirate. They called a code blue, and it felt like everyone on the floor came pouring into our room. Avery was screaming as they suctioned liquid out of his lungs.”

When he was about 6 hours old, Avery had an X-ray taken, and doctors discovered that Avery had a Tracheo-esophogeal fistula (TEF). Essentially, Hayley explained “his esophagus took a wrong turn and was not attached to his stomach. Instead, his esophagus was attached to his trachea, and basically all the milk that he was drinking was dumping right into his lungs, causing him to aspirate and drown.”

Avery’s TEF required immediate surgery, Hayley shared, otherwise he was not going to make it. The hospital where they were called the team at MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital (BBCH), and a BBCH critical care transport team picked Avery up by ambulance. Hayley had to stay at the outside hospital while she recovered, though she notes that this was not at all her choice. She joined Avery at BBCH the next day.

Avery was born on a Monday, and on Wednesday had his TEF repair surgery to detach his esophagus from his trachea, and reattach it to the bottom portion of his esophagus. Avery’s family was told that he might need to spend months in the BBCH Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) recovering. But Hayley revealed that Avery had his own plans and timeline: “Avery is the strongest little human and beat those odds, and we were able to go home when he was just 2 weeks old.”

In addition to TEF, Avery also had severe tracheo-bronchomalacia (TBM); his trachea was 90% closed. After his initial NICU stay, Avery was hospitalized at BBCH twice more, for acute respiratory failure. At five-months-old, Avery had surgery to help his TBM. He now sees his doctors for check-ups on a regular basis, but is otherwise a normal, healthy two-year-old.

One of the doctors who Avery sees for regular check-ups is his BBCH pulmonologist, Dr. Annie Coates, and Hayley shared how grateful they are for her care: “Dr. Coates is the most incredibly passionate, sincere, and kind human on the face of the planet. Dr. Coates hugged me while Avery was at his lowest moments, when I thought that I might lose him. Since then, she has been my biggest cheerleader, and Avery’s biggest supporter. Every time we see her, she just pours her love over us and makes us feel like we are the most important people to her at that moment.”

Avery just recently celebrated his second birthday, and Hayley says he’s a normal, active two-year-old. Their family is also celebrating another big milestone as well- Avery has gone 1 ½ years without a hospitalization! Yay, Avery!