Tatum Blake has had a pretty challenging start. However he’s proven how strong he is even while in the womb. He had what was known to be a really rare cord placement called a velamentous cord insertion (VCI). A VCI is a complication of pregnancy where the umbilical cord is inserted in the fetal membranes. It is a major cause of antepartum hemorrhage that leads to loss of fetal blood and associated with high perinatal mortality. Tatum was born during an induction at 38 weeks on October 20, 2023 because of hemorrhaging on October 18,2023. Since the VCI restricted blood flow and nutrition, Tatum was born with a low birth weight and a couple congenital conditions. Such as thumb hypoplasia, chordee, a hole in his heart, and a bicuspid aortic valve. Since birth to him now being 2 months old he has been in and out of multiple different specialists each week for further testing on his blood, kidneys, heart, bladder and spine. He has to have his first surgery to fix the chordee at 6 months old, and after he has a series of surgeries starting at 9 months old to have his thumb reconstructed. After some blood tests with his hematologist Tatum was diagnosed with neutropenia. Neutropenia occurs when your body has a low level of a certain type of white blood cells called neutrophils. Having neutropenia doesn’t let his immune system prevent or fight infections or viruses very well. On Thursday December 21, 2023 Tatum was seen by his pediatrician for some slight congestion and a cough and was sent home with a negative flu test. Vanessa had a bad feeling all day and stayed up with him all night. At 1am on the morning of December 22, 2023 Tatum stopped breathing in his sleep. The paramedics were called and he was rushed to the hospital. Tatum was intubated in the emergency room, and is now on a ventilator in the PICU with the flu a collapsed lung and multifocal pneumonia. He is fighting for his life, however, he is showing just how strong he really is with some good improvements in the last 5 days. However, the road to recovery is going to be long and slow. Even after Tatum is strong enough to come off the ventilator he has to undergo speech therapy to learn how to swallow and eat again. Most of Tatum’s medical bills will be covered, but not all. With all of the visits back and forth to specialists, Vanessa has not been able to go back to work, leaving Cory the main provider and with the most recent turn of events Cory himself has been out of work leaving them financially strained.