Riley's story

Three years ago, my husband and I were expecting our first child, a little girl. She was due on October 1, 1998. It was the morning of our six-month check-up when I discovered that I was bleeding. My husband rushed me to the clinic where they examined me and decided that they couldn't help us. I was then taken by ambulance to our local hospital. My midwife met us there, and it was decided that if our daughter had any chance of surviving, it was at a Hartford area hospital. So, we took another risky ambulance ride to Farmington. Our daughter, Hunter Lyn was born June 2, 1998, weighing 1 pound, 3 ounces. She died 45 minutes later in my husband's arms.

I underwent some painful testing to try and figure out what had caused Hunter to be born so early after what my doctor had described as a "picture-book pregnancy." When the doctors there found nothing that could explain why this tragedy had occurred, we decided to go see the high risk/perinatal specialists at Yale-New Haven Hospital, which was much closer to our home. After two more miscarriages, we waited a year and then conceived again.

When I was three months pregnant, Drs. Urania Magriples and David Jones decided that they wanted to start giving me weekly ultrasounds to monitor the baby and my cervix. All of the doctors and nurses were extremely kind to us and always made me feel like I was their favorite patient.

Dr. Jones started meeting us at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London for our weekly ultrasounds since it was so much closer to our house in Old Lyme. When we were 21 1/2 weeks pregnant, we were at our regular weekly ultrasound, when Dr. Jones noticed that my cervix had started to open. He told us to go home and pack up some things, because I was going to have an emergency cerclage (a stitch wrapped around the cervix to keep it closed and to keep the baby in) the next morning.

When we found out that Dr. Magriples was putting the cerclage in, it made us feel much better. Since the cerclage was being done so late in my pregnancy, I was going to have to be put under general anesthesia. Once I got into the operating room, the anxiety kicked in, but Dr. Magriples sat down beside me and held my hand until I fell asleep. The surgery went perfectly, but I was going to have to be put on bed rest. I spent 97 days on bed rest with my only outings being my weekly ultrasound visits.

My cerclage was taken out when I was 35 weeks pregnant, and our daughter, Riley May was delivered by Dr. Magriples two weeks later, weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces. She is the best thing that ever happened to us, and we truly believe that if it weren't for Yale-New Haven High Risk Maternity, we would not have her.

Thank you Yale New Haven Hospital.
Happy 175th Anniversary,
April Jacobson
Old Lyme, Conn.