A Mother’s Love

Meet Joshua. He is a big brother to two year old Isaiah. Joshua and Isaiah’s mom Cindi have a platelet condition called Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia or NAIT. This condition causes antibodies to form in her body while she is pregnant. The antibodies try to “fight” the fetus as if the baby is an infection. Unfortunately, NAIT does not allow platelets to pass to the baby while in utero; and due to low or non-existing platelets, it can cause the baby to experience intracranial hemorrhaging, internal bleeding and in some cases even death.

At 27 weeks, doctors performed an in utero procedure to give a transfusion to Joshua to help the platelets pass through the uterus. Sadly, this procedure did not work. Therefore at 29 weeks doctors repeated the procedure and unfortunately Joshua began to bleed out. His platelet count had gotten too low. Doctors preformed an emergency C-Section and by the time his mom was sedated to start the surgery, Joshua’s heart had stopped beating.

Joshua was delivered expeditiously and CPR was performed immediately. After 15 minutes of CPR, Joshua’s heart started beating! However, the doctors did not think he would survive the night. They said if he did, they thought that with the length of time his brain was without oxygen Joshua would have almost no brain activity.

A few test in the first few weeks of life showed they were indeed correct. The lack of oxygen had caused severe brain damage. Joshua’s family was finally sent home from the NICU with a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy.

Cindi stopped working and began a battery of physical therapy appointments and eventually occupational therapy, speech therapy, and developmental instruction. Joshua had multiple therapy appointments daily and every few hours his mom repeated the stretches (every 2 hours around the clock for the first 2 years of his life).

Cindi says, “We can proudly report that Joshua just turned 4 and although he has some developmental delays and fine motor delays his Cerebral Palsy is only able to be seen by a trained eye! Joshua is an extremely happy, active, and loving little boy that steals the heart of everyone he meets. Our family and I would like to thank Icing Smiles and our Baker, Nicole from Sweet Love and Cake in Glenrock, NJ for the amazing cake she made for Joshua for his birthday. We are forever grateful and you really have brought smiles to our faces!”

Thank you Sugar Angel Nicole Morano for a fiercely made Jurassic Park themed cake for Joshua! To see more of Nicole’s amazing creations ‘Like’ her on Facebook.