DENVER — What started out as a healthy pregnancy for a Denver woman took a scary turn during her delivery. Now, Amy Presutti and her 7-week-old baby, Sovereign Joy, have been dealing with health complications.
"Everything was fine up until labor, I just got a really bad infection," said Presutti, who said she has lost most of her memory of what happened during birth.
Her husband, Stephen, was by her side and said their baby girl was born with no heartbeat.
"She came out not breathing, no heartbeat, for about 6 and a half minutes she didn’t have a heartbeat," he said. "Once they got her heart beating and breathing, she was given about three days to live and they expected her to be fully brain dead."
The family is counting their blessings as baby Sovereign has defied those odds and things are now looking better for the two.
"She seems to be adjusting to life, she’s making eye contact which is a really, really good sign," said Presutti. "My infection was still quite a bit present last week. But this week, I got another CT scan and they found that the infection was small enough that they thought my body could take care of it by itself."
However, the family is facing unexpected obstacles from no longer being able to work full-time.
"I don't know what it's gonna look like in terms of when or if I'm able to go back," she said.
Stephen said he was working full-time before it all happened, and has used up all of his parental leave time during the hospital stay.
They're also facing a road of unknowns when it comes to baby Sovereign's health.
"It's daunting. I mean, with every milestone that she gets, we don't know if she'll reach the next one. And so that's a little overwhelming just because there's no understanding or expectation," Presutti said.
The Presuttis have been getting through the difficult times through their faith and the community's generosity.
"Prayers are what's carried us through all of this without knowing in the beginning if I was going to be okay, if she was going to be okay," said the new mother, adding several people from their church and some parents from their son's school, and even just a few strangers, have been dropping off meals for them.
"Which has helped a lot because he's, he's doing almost everything with how sick I've been," said Presutti. "It's overwhelming. So we're just kind of thankful that we are where we are."
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