Tiffany Larsen

Kelsey’s story

On April 3rd, 2023, we went into the hospital to get checked for reduced fetal movement with the hope that they were going to say I just wasn’t feeling her move because of an anterior placenta. When we arrived, I was hooked up to the monitors to check on Kelsey, and it didn’t take long for the on-call doctor to come in and tell us Kelsey was having random episodes of decelerations, a decreased heart rate for short periods of time. If that wasn’t scary enough, the doctor mentioned that due to this, there would be a chance of delivering that very night, so I was given a steroid shot to help Kelsey’s lungs develop in case that situation were to arise. Unfortunately, these random episodes of decelerations continued overnight anytime I wasn’t lying on my left side. 

The next morning, when my doctor came in, he said they were going to continue to monitor me, and he was going to talk with a couple of other doctors. As the morning went on, Kelsey continued to have prolonged decelerations every 20-30 minutes, so they decided I would be having a C-section within the hour. At 1:32 pm, Kelsey was born at 3 lbs 12 oz and immediately given care by the NICU and respiratory team. Within 2 hours, Kelsey was transferred to a tier 3 NICU in West Allis, and Brent was able to join her until I was discharged and able to join her the next day. 

When she was 3 days old, I was finally able to hold her. Kelsey stayed in the NICU in West Allis until May 3rd, when we were able to have her transferred closer to home. Before we could bring her home, Kelsey had to learn to breathe and eat without assistance and without having any episodes. Some days we made a lot of progress, and other days it felt like we would never get to bring her home. On May 28th, after 54 days, we were finally able to bring her home. 

Today, Kelsey is 3 and in many ways is like a normal toddler, but in some ways, we still see the lasting impacts of her prematurity. Common colds still knock her on her butt; she has been back in the hospital multiple times, but we are figuring out ways to help her before things get too bad. We go back to the NICU every 6-9 months to check on her development, and so far, she has been meeting and even surpassing all of her milestones.

Kelsey’s NICU days were some of the scariest days of our lives, but we’re so thankful for the amazing doctors and nurses who took care of her and that we were taken seriously when we initially went in.