OUR STORY:

On 8/26 I was admitted to the hospital at Gundersen because I had high blood pressure also known as Preeclampsia. While I already was considered high risk with Gestational diabetes during pregnancy, my son had major growth restrictions and was diagnosed with Taussig-bing syndrome which is a congenital heart disease. From beginning we already knew we were going to have to deliver at a level 4 high risk hospital that could support the both of our needs but just didn't know it was going to be this early. So, there we are on our first mother and son helicopter ride to Madison. Being 2hrs away from friends and family, I was bedridden for 7 days and it was the worst experience ever. I was on so many medications, swollen in pain, constantly on the NST monitor, and it hurt to walk, stand, and even eat!

Finally, on 9/2/2025, during our echo exam…. It was time we deliver because we were both getting sick. I underwent a C-section and my god it was traumatizing. Winter was born at 32 weeks weighing at 2 pounds and 11 ounces and he was in the NICU for 45 days total up until his passing. During labor and delivery, I couldn't even hold him because he had to be taken up to the NICU right away and stabilized. Our moment was stolen away. Took about 10 days until I finally got to hold him having our first skin to skin. Out of the whole duration in the hospital in the NICU and PICU, I was only able to hold him 4 times. Little did I know, the fourth time was my going to be my last time holding my sweet little Winter...and this time with no tubes, cables, and machines attached to him. :'(

While waiting for him to grow, I tried breast pumping. And if you know me personally, I have always said I will never pump when I have kids because I didn't want saggy boobs. But boy....did that change when I had my Winter. I tried breast pumping but got very little in return. I tried all hacks and tried to stay consistent because the least I could do for him was provide mommy's milk. I was so discouraged and stressed on top of everything else happening back at home. I stayed up late nights to watch my son, change his diaper, and help the nurse. I ate very little because I didn't want to leave his bed side. I pumped every day until I saw a physician, and she told me I was going to never be able to produce much more than what I have already because of how my health was. I stopped pumping up until the day of his surgery. Although I was sad, I could no longer produce, I was staying hopeful of everything else.

Two weeks prior to his surgery, his oxygen levels kept dropping and which it meant it was time for surgery because otherwise his other organs would be at risk of getting sick.

One week prior to his surgery, I came back home for a couple days to attend some doctor appointments. And when I was home for these couple days I had some disturbing and scary dreams. I had a dream of two snakes chasing me and eventually biting me (twice). The next dream was me seeing a scene of a parked ambulance and people surrounding a building and health professionals rolling out a dead body. I looked over to the building and got curious of what was in the building. As I approached the door and I stepped into the entry. I couldn't see anything but so many stairs zig zagging left and right, so I wanted look further in to see more and potentially take a peek at the first closes room I can get into. As I was going to take the first step in, a Hmong Nruas (hmong gong) appeared in the doorway blocking me and ringing to warn me to not go further. I had a scary feeling, so I returned back and left the scene with my partner. Told my mom about these dreams and like usual, I was told to brush it off. So, I did. But now I question, was this a sign? Was this goodbye?

Finally returning to the hospital on 10/14 in Madison, surgery was scheduled for my little Winter on 10/16/2025. We knew that this heart surgery was going to be difficult because he was born premature and was very small due to growth restrictions. The chances of him living was 85% and we were just hoping he was not going to fall into that 15%. We tried to stay positive.

10/16/2025 @ 7am: Winter was taken to the operating room from the PICU. It took all day and this was the longest day for me. I did everything I could to keep myself busy but as nightfall came, i got more and more anxious. His surgery lasted 16 hours. When I finally got to see My baby, he looked unrecognizable. He was so swollen from surgery and his chest was left open until the swelling went down. I was so worried about him sitting there watching the two nurses organize his tubes and provide medications as the PICU attending doctor advised. Monitors beeping and going off like crazy but I tried to stay positive and patient. In my head, I couldn't wait until all the hard part was over which included his recovery.

This night, we slept next to him at the bedside and upon the early early morning they couldn’t stabilize his blood pressure as it kept dropping. They woke us up at 5am and asked us to leave because he needed to go back onto the ECMO machine that basically works for his lung and heart. We slept in one of the hospitals family consultant rooms until they gave us permission to see him. I woke up at 8 to check on him and left at 9am to pick up and cook for my mom at the Ronald Mcdonalds house down the block. When I returned at 11:30am, they asked for consent to take him down to the Catheter lab to look further into his anatomy because an Xray was not enough and they wanted to see why he was experiencing complications. I consented as I thought this was the best route. I was doing what I thought was right in that moment and as I'm sitting here writing this.... I'm no longer sure if it was.

10/17/2025 &@ 4:45 PM: Hours went by and I only got one phone call about how my Winter was doing in the lab and by 4:45pm, I decided to walk over to the nurse's station to see his nurse and ask for more updates. As I walked down the hall, I can see people going in and out of our room with alarms on the machine going off. As I got closer, I looked into the room and there's like 20 ppl trying to support my little baby. The first nurse that saw me told me they were performing CPR on my son. I cried. I asked when they got back because no one told me anything or called me with an update. The nurse told me they just brought him back up to the room 30 seconds before I had got there. As they brought him up, for some reason the machine started going off because his blood was no longer flowing into the machine. So they started performing CPR to keep his heart bumping until they got their ECMO machine to start working again. I was told to head back to the family room and I sat there for 20 minutes asking friends and family to pray for him. The Child Life nurse came in twice to keep me updated and said at first, they thought it was the ECMO machine so it was swapped out with another one, but they kept getting the same results. I cried and cried patiently waiting and hoping that they were able to stabilize him and the machine.

10/17/2025 @ 5:30 PM: Two female Doctors walked in and explained the situation and broke the news. I BAWLED. BAWLED like I never had before. I just wanted to see my baby at this point. I was in disbelief, and I was praying to God it was all a dream. I walked down the hall passing the nurses staring at me weeping. As I sat outside the room while the doctors and nurses were cleaning the room out, the next room to us was a family leaving. At first I thought maybe it was too chaotic so they were asked to move to a different PICU room so I asked the nurse. She said they were discharged. My heart broke even more. Why couldn't that have been me? I'm sitting here watching all the nurses and doctors wrap up our room and close the door as they walked out so I wouldn't have to see. I cried and cried and at this point I didnt care who was looking. I would have never thought this was the last time I got to hold my baby. A nurse stood by me and I could tell she was in the room with all the chaos and had just got done crying because her mascara was smeared. She comforted me and tried her best to explain to me what happened and answer any of my questions. The last thing I said to her:

Me: Do you have any kids of your own?

She: Yes, I do.

Me: What do you have?

She: I have two little boys (cries)

Me: You're so lucky.

Me: (cries) I was so afraid of walking out of this hospital empty handed. And my worst fear came true.

Both of us: (cries)

When I was finally allowed to go in, this was the moment I will never forget. My baby's lifeless body swaddled up in his little bed. He was all sorts of colors and pale. I cried and cried. I couldn't hear anything anymore. I just wish this was all a bad dream. I held him and cried on that stupid two seater rocking chair that I saw one week prior in the hallway thinking to myself "WOW WHAT A COOL WAITING CHAIR". Little did I know this chair was the chair you never want to sit in. It was a colorful two seated rocking chair to say your last goodbyes to your most beloved.

In the end his lungs gave up and were no longer inflating and it was determined that his blood got too thick in which it made it hard for his blood to flow to the rest of his body. He had a blood clot in his arteries, and his right side of his heart was severely small making it hard for him to pump blood.

Now I sit here in silence, in a quiet home, cleaning and unpacking our things on such a beautiful day. Cas nis kho kho kuv lub siab li os. If only you could talk and tell me, "Mommy, I'm hurting. I can't stand it no more. Please don't let them do anything else more." Would that have changed anything? Was this karma for all my sins? Why would god give me something just to take it away. How many more heartbreaks will I have to go through. So many questions, what ifs, what went wrong, was it me, what could we have done differently.

If you read it to this far, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this long ass post. If anything, I would like to ask everyone for a small donation to go towards putting my little boy to rest. We used a lot of our expenses to travel back and forth, pay our bills while we were at his bedside, and towards his medical bills.

Your donation would be greatly appreciated and will go towards his funeral expenses, coffin, and headstone. My son had the sweetest eyes and if you saw him right now, he would wink to say thank you.

Thank you <3