Madeline was born November 15th at 7:15 pm.  We had known at 21 weeks that she was a girl and had full Trisomy 18.  She tolerated natural labor great and was born alive – our first success!  We soon discovered that she had esophageal atresia and a tracheoesophageal fistula which we elected to have repaired on the 3rd day of her life so that we could feed her and support her breathing without causing her pain.  She had the surgery and did great, but developed pulmonary edema/congestive heart failure at 2 weeks of age.  Due to that and tracheomalacia she remained nasal CPAP dependent her whole life.  We were able to bring her home at 5 weeks of age, but she grew too weak and was having too many spells and we had to say goodbye when she turned 7 weeks old.  She fought to the very end, staying with us until 7:30 pm on the day she turned 7 weeks old.

We miss you Madeline Rose!