I am Brookes's mother, Cohens Nana ....we have had so many people wanting to know how to help, where to send money and most importantly letting our family know that they are praying for Cohen and his entire family. They are blessed and able to stay in the Ronald McDonald House for now or at least until this first surgery is behind them, but they are occurring the cost of parking, food, and fuel going and coming from the hospital to their home to see their other three babies. They will be traveling back and forth after his surgery for around six months to be with him, and costs start adding up quickly. We are not asking for you to send money, but for those of you who have asked and want to, we wanted a place for you to be able to send it if you did not want to send it via PayPal.

I wanted to share her posts on what has occurred and ask you all to keep Cohen in your prayers as well as Brooke, Dylan, Slayte, Baylen and Holland.

Thank you and God Bless

Cohen was born at 5:32 PM on Thursday May 12th. With a few complications of my own during labor , but he came out healthy and perfect.

On Friday May 13 (in the morning) a heart murmur was noticed by a pediatrician and we were told it is normal for babies and they would keep us here an extra day to make sure it fixes itself or we’d go further into it and see a cardiologist.

Later that evening his nurse came to get him for his 24 hour blood work, about an hour went by before we got a knock on our hospital door from the NICU pediatrician saying Cohen was not doing well at all. His breathing was labored, and his color was off. She then told us that he was being set up in the NICU because she was extremely worried about him.

When we got up to the NICU, he was struggling to breathe and he looked a little purple. She asked if we consented to him having a central line put in so that he didn’t have to continuously be poked, and we of course said yes.

We were told they were running numerous test on him, and were trying to get down to what was causing all the issues - whether it be infection or his heart.

3 hours later we got a knock on the door that we needed to go back to the nicu right away, and the fear on the nurses face told us that something was wrong.

As we approached Cohen he had been intubated (breathing tube down his throat) and his breathing was twice as bad as when he had seen him a few hours before. We were met by the nicu doctor who began to tell us that Cohen took a spin for the worse, and that he needed to be moved to the Childrens hospital. He explained to us that his heart was working very hard.

He also began to tell us that Cohens acid in his blood was extremely high and that he needed a better hospital, with better equipment.

He was transported at 3:30 AM

At 6:20 AM this morning (Saturday May 14th) we got a phone call from the Children’s Hospital that Cohen has Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome. This means the left side of his heart and aortic valve basically did not form so it is not allowing the blood to be pumped back to the rest of his body.

As of now (10:00 am) he is stable, on room air but still intubated. We are waiting for his cardiologist to let us know our next move.

12:30 Pm (May 14th) Update:

We heard what any parents doesn’t want to hear, and he is in very critical condition.

He is surviving only due to the hospital where we delivered because they did everything RIGHT. (THANK YOU GOD) They were able to access the situation and went into action immediately.

We found out that he only has the the right side of his heart functioning. The left is so small that it is doing no work to pump blood to any parts of his body. His kidneys took a huge hit, and we are praying it didn’t affect his brain (time will only tell).

The plan of care is to perform a procedure called the Norwood procedure, but this cannot happen until his organs are stronger. (We hope for Wednesday but that’s not a guarantee)

On a scale of 1-10 of how severe and tough this surgery is, the doctor said this is a 10. It is EXTREMELY complex.

He will need several surgeries, and it will be a long road. He could be in the hospital for 6 months due to all these complications and they have three sweet boys at home as well.

UPDATE 051522

I wanted to give everyone an update on Cohen.

The heart condition he has is called HLHS - Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Cohens left side of his heart did not develop when he was in the womb, it is significantly smaller than the right side and it not pushing blood to several parts of his body. Basically he is living with half a heart. The left side will never grow larger, or become normal. He will have to have several surgeries to make the right side of his heart able to pump blood to every part of his body.

The surgeries are very complex and will occur when he is a week or so old, 6 months old, and again between the ages of 3-5 years. It will be a very long road, and he will be in the hospital for several months (6 months at the least).

When we got to the San Antonio Children’s Hospital, Cohens organs took a huge hit because the oxygen wasn’t getting to them. Today we got encouraging news, we found out that his kidneys are functioning normal and getting great oxygen. We also found out his blood gas numbers are at a normal level (they were not good when we arrived here).

Cohens liver took a hit also with not enough oxygen, so that is something we are waiting on to recover.

He has a small blockage in his lungs, which is normal in babies with heart problems. They have him on medicine to break it down and have a tube down his ventilator to suction any mucus out.

He is on a ventilator, but he is breathing on his own. The ventilator is there to give him an extra breath every once in awhile if need be. This is really good, especially since he only has half his heart functioning.

We are waiting for the pressure to drop in his lungs (which usually occurs in babies around 7-10 days after they are born) before we can go into surgery. The pressure in his lungs has to be low so that when they finish the surgery and the pressure rises to normal or high, that they don’t get over pressurized.

We are very optimistic, and so is the surgeon.

He is saying we have time for his organs to recover before putting him into a very intensive surgery, which is a huge huge huge blessing.

We see every single text, prayer, call, share - and we want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for praying for our baby. If we do not reply, it’s because we are overwhelmed and exhausted.

Your prayers are WORKING! He is improving (still critical but improving) and we thank our God for that. Please continue to pray, add him to your prayer list, and share his story. Also please pray for our 3 boys at home that we had to leave behind, they are as lost as we are and we are missing them like crazy.

-The Matte Family

5-16-22 update from my son in law

Update: Cohen is doing fine. Cardiologist and Cardiovascular Surgeon told me they are planning to do an MRI on his brain Wednesday and that they are scheduling to do surgery for Thursday unless anything changes. Also the anesthesiologist at the hospital where Cohen was born had issues giving Brooke an epidural. Tried twice and I’m not sure but don’t think either of them were successful. She had extreme tension in her neck and a constant headache after giving birth. She received a blood patch on her spine where the paid and tension were relieved for roughly 12 hours. The pain came back and this morning she was having major stiffness and pain in her neck and a headache again. I brought her back to the hospital where she gave birth to Cohen. They done a CAT scan on her brain and spine and have come to the conclusion that she has a brain bleed. They will be doing an MRI, if I’m not mistaken, to determine the extent. Things are rough for us at the moment, I ask that everyone let her relax as much as she possibly can. I’d also like to ask to not only keep my son in your thoughts and prayers, but my wife as well.