Ainsley
Short
Port Angeles, Washington
Heather and Dean Short anxiously awaited
the birth of their first child, but nothing could have prepared
them for what lay ahead. When Heather went into labor, they
were prepared for the typically long labor of first-time moms.
Once she arrived at the hospital, however, things changed
rapidly. The baby was clearly in distress, and there was no
time to waste. Ainsley Isis was born by emergency C-section
within two hours. “They said, ‘It’s a girl,’
but there was no sound,” Dean recalls. She was blue
and flaccid, with severe respiratory distress resulting from
meconium aspiration. Airlift Northwest was called to transport
her to the intensive care unit of Seattle Children’s,
where she was placed on full support ventilation and even
hooked up to a bypass machine to oxygenate her blood. Dean
drove through the night to be at her side, and Heather followed
within 36 hours. “She was so tiny, with tubes coming
out of her, left, right and center,” Dean says. “But
we knew there was probably no place in the country that could
have given her better care.” After three worry-filled
weeks, baby Ainsley recovered fully and got to go home with
mom and dad.
From Olympic Memorial (Port Angeles,
WA) to Seattle Children’s (Seattle, WA)
(More
patient and partner stories here)
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