story

Most people would say “How much of a story can you truly tell about a child that

only lived to be seven and a half months old?” My response to that is “How

much time do you have?” Gabi started her fight long before she was even born.

See, we found out when Gabi was in the womb that not only did she have

Down Syndrome, but she also had an AV Canal defect in her heart. Simply

put she only had two chambers to her heart versus four and all of her blue

blood

was mixing with her red blood. This obviously had a major effect on her

breathing and blood flow. Gabi had to go through weekly tests for about that

last 3 months in the womb. Until one day there was too much stress on the umbilical

chord and she was not getting enough oxygen to her brain and the doctors said “Induce!” So

at 4:41am on January 12, 2007 Gabriele Sheridan

Acker was born 3 weeks early at an even 6lbs. All of this was the easy part.

Gabi was a beautiful little baby and impressive from day one. Babies with DS are typically more

difficult to get to latch on to the mother when trying to breast feed. Out of about six babies’s

born that day in the hospital, Gabi being the only one with DS; she was the first one to latch on to her mother

and start breast feeding. Despite all of our fears of what could happen after she was born and how long

we’d have to be in the

hospital we were home just like any other “normal” parents in 2 1/2 days.

This amazing child found out quickly that she could not allow herself to get too

upset other wise the mixture of blood would be all wrong, she wouldn’t be able

to breathe, and she would turn blue. So she figured out other ways to

communicate with mommy and daddy when she needed something. Of

course between us and her big sister she didn’t go too long unattended.

Gabi had at least one if not two doctor appointments a week which kept her

mommy very busy. We had some issues with feeding and her gaining

weight and the doctors were always watching the leakage in her heart. We

knew that eventually she was going to have to have heart surgery and with

everything the doctors told us, that surgery was suppose to save her life.

On June 26th 2007 we took Gabi into the hospital for her surgery. Her mother and I can

still see her face so vividly even today as she was being carried away by two nurses to prep her for

surgery. We went to the waiting room with family members and waited. Every so often the nurses would

come down and let us know that she was doing amazing and everything with the surgery was going

so well. They eventually took her to the PICU for recovery and we were going to be able to see our baby

again soon. The events following us seeing our baby again can easily be described as the most horrific days

any parents should have to endure.

We walked in to see her with IV’s in every available part of her body. She had somewhere between 13 and

16 different medications that were pumping in to her body. She was swollen and there were about 8 doctors

still in her room, mumbling and watching all of the monitors. We had no idea what was going on until one of

the doctors finally told us that her heart rate was too low and they were going to have to rush her back down

to the OR to open her chest to relieve the pressure from a

swollen heart or she would die! Up behind comes the Chaplin to see if there is

anyone we need her to call. Mommy almost collapsed and we were taken to a

different room as we had to watch them take our daughter away again!

So when we see our daughter again still plugged into a multiple number of

machines, she now has a piece of tape over her open chest as we can see it

move up and down as her heart beats! In a panic and going crazy with the

thought of the possibility of losing our daughter from a surgery that we

were told was the most common, and has the highest success rate of being

fixed, one that would only keep us in the hospital for 8 to 10 days…HA!

Gabi started to get better, machines and medications became less and less as

the days went on. We eventually even down to about 2 machines and her ventilator was

almost turned off. So the exciting day came when they were going to take her off the ventilator. They did

this for only a

short time as she was still not strong enough to breathe on her own even though it was almost off. After that

happened it was one problem after the next and back came all the medications and machines as if we were

starting all over again. The part that troubled the doctors is the fact that nothing Gabi had was unfixable.

The problem was they couldn’t fix them all at the same time. They couldn’t find the right mix of drugs to fix

all of them. They would fix her dehydration, and then something else would go wrong. They would fix that

then she would be dehydrated again. She began to swell up with fluids again to the point that her eyes were

swollen shut. Our last resort was dialysis which we were told based on how swollen she was could kill her,

but if we didn’t

do it she would probably die too. So we did the Dialysis and it started to

work, there was no rush of fluids. Then other things began to go wrong,

and Gabi had finally told us that she just could not fight all that was

going wrong with her body any more. The medications and machines

were operating her body and they were all at max capacity, meaning

they were doing all the work. We called all the family and friends to

come be with us as we held her in our arms and waited for her to get

her angel wings. On August 20th, 2007 at 12:50AM, Gabriele Sheridan

Acker returned to heaven with her wings.

Gabi, fought from before day one in this world, and worked so hard for

the last 2 months of her

life to continue and be with us. Unfortunately that was just not God’s

plan for this amazing little

girl. I pray no one has to experience all that we have gone through, but we know that it does

happen all the time all over the world.

What Gabi’s fight to stay alive and her time with us has given us and our entire family a completely

different perspective on life and people! Adults and children with disabilities we now see as these

amazing people that fight so hard to survive. We cherish the time we have with each other and our

other children knowing that at any second it could be our last.

Gabi only lived for seven and a half months but she has taught us and so many others such valuable

lessons that we can not keep it to ourselves. So we started Gifts of Gabi’s Grace to help other

families that have had to go through a similar situation, but may not have the financial or family

support that we did. We have to take the time to try and show people what Gabi taught us.

We want to make sure when people think things are too hard, and it’s not worth

fighting, to remember Gabi. When you are arguing with a spouse over something

that is so insignificant, remember Gabi. When your kids are getting on your last

nerve and annoying you to death, be happy they are there to do that, and

remember Gabi.

If we could all fight, love, appreciate and smile like a little girl that was only

seven and half months old, imagine what this world could be like!

This is just a short summary compared to the full details of Gabi’s life that we

have posted on her blog. Mommy started a blog to help communicate with

others while she was pregnant with Gabi, we still continue to update weekly.

Please click below to be connected directly to our blog!