The Events Surrounding the Birth of

Saturday, April 9th, 2005 - During some yard work I (Steve) casually asked Martha if she had felt the baby move that day. She said no but that it was not uncommon for him to sleep for long periods during the day. I said something a bit odd like, "Well, let's just monitor this" and promptly forgot about it, which was also uncharacteristic for me. Thankfully, Martha did just that and paid closer attention to his movements throughout the rest of that day and into the night.

Sunday, April 10th - Still having not felt the baby move, Martha heads to the hospital at 2:45am. She did not report having any type of overwhelming impressions about Ben's health but it was very unlike her given how easy it would have been to just wait until morning. We believe that this was nothing short of God intervening as she is usually the one that waits things out. Her comment was, "I just needed to know he was okay after him not responding as he normally would."

At the hospital, the heartbeat was found but the results of two ultrasounds (one after lots of glucose) were not good. The baby was definitely not moving or breathing well and had no muscle tone. No one was sure what the exact issue was as there was no obvious cause, but it was agreed that the baby would "do better out than in". So Martha was given a spinal and an emergency C-Section was performed.

Sunday, April 10th 7:21am - 20 minutes later, Benjamin Michael Hill is born in severe condition. He is extremely anemic and quite literally white as a sheet of printer paper. According to the doctor, this was due to an occurrence known as fetomaternal transfusion (or hemorrhage). As the term suggests, this is a passing of blood from the baby to the mother and is a fairly common occurance in small very amounts. But in Ben's case virtually all of his blood went to Martha. When asked how long the condition had been occurring, we were told the blood loss is usually slow occurring over the course of weeks and sometimes slower than that. It is almost always fatal as the only sign of distress is an almost imperceivable decrease in movement.

The delivering physician sat on the edge of the bed with Martha and I a couple of hours after delivery and told us Ben was as white as the bed sheet and that never in the 15 years he has been delivering babies had he seen a baby look like Ben and survive. He called it a "rare opportunity". Indeed, the medical staff agreed that a good description of Ben was "stillborn with a heartbeat". The delivering doctor and all the nurses agreed that if Martha had waited until morning to go to the hospital, a mere 6 hours, Benjamin would probably have been dead. It was that close.

Life saving measures are undertaken. Benjamin received 3 blood transfusions within a few hours with the first one being universal, which they never like to give to preemies. Benjamin had so little blood they literally could not get even a single drop out to determine his blood type. He was also put on a ventilator right away and give a typical lung surfactant to increase the surface area of his lungs for better Oxygen absorption.

When I saw the little guy that afternoon, I was greeted by a sweaty neonatologist grave with concern. It is the kind of meeting that is forever etched in your mind hearing things you hoped you never had to hear. I was told that Benjamin would probably have severe mental impairment as well as muscular/movement impairment. Cerebral palsy was a real possibility among other things.

It seemed that not one of the doctors or nurses had seen a patient as anemic as Benjamin survive and told us so.

We were asked if we wanted to discontinue treatment and take him off life support sometime Sunday evening. A few days later, one of the nurses told me that a she and several of her counterparts wondered if we had made an uninformed decision when we opted to keep him alive. They were so sure we would be taking home "a vegetable that would be tube fed for the rest of his life" they couldn't believe that we would not take him off life support. But we hung on to the fact that if God rescued him so close to death then it was surely God's will that he be born and Martha and I both had total peace that he would not die.

The hematocrit count is a percentage of red blood cells in a volume of blood. The optimal hematocrit for a newborn is 56, meaning that 56% of the blood's volume is composed of red cells. A hematocrit of less than 15 can result in cardiac failure. Benjamin's hematocrit could not even be detected initially since they couldn't get any blood from his little body. After his first transfusion of universal type blood, he had a shockingly low hematocrit of 10. After 3 blood transfusions his hematocrit was measured at 20. Benjamin had a total of 5 transfusions over the course of the first 2 or 3 days which brought his count up to around 38.

On Monday, April 11th, Benjamin was put on a high-frequency, oscillating ventilator while undergoing a three day drug-induced coma. When I came in to the NICU that day, every other baby had been moved into another wing leaving Ben by himself in an area meant to handle 14 or so babies. When I asked why, I was told that his Oxygen levels were so low that every noise, light or touch would send his levels dangerously low. This was a critical time and the coma was designed to bring stabilization to Ben's system. In case you are wondering, this type of ventilator is much more gentle on the lungs of a small baby. Whereas 30 to 40 breaths a minute is common with a regular ventilator, the high-frequency ventilator inflates the lungs much better and allows more oxygen into the lungs by breathing very fast, up to 400 times a minute. When I put my hand on Benjamin's chest while he was on this "big gun" as they call it, it felt like he was purring along like a high performance engine.

As a result of the lack of circulation, Ben was extremely acidotic and was given bicarbonate therapy, which seems to be up for debate as to whether or not it really does any good. This treatment was occurring during the above mentioned three day coma. Basically, because Ben had virtually no circulation occurring and his body was shutting down and the normal/regular cellular release of toxins/acid was not occurring. Now that his circulatory system had started back up again, his system was all at once being flooded with toxins/acid, which can cause some serious problems.

Like many premature babies, Benjamin had hyperbilirubinemia. Infants with hyperbilirubinemia have high levels of bilirubin, a compound that results from the natural breakdown of blood. This high level of bilirubin causes them to develop jaundice, a yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes.

Benjamin was taken off all ventilators after 4 days and put on a nasal cannula, which simply forces a gentle amount of room air into the nostrils. The cannula was removed on the 6th day and he has breathed room air unaided ever since. The picture at right shows Ben just 6 days after being just about stillborn with nothing to help him breathe! This is nothing short of miraculous and there was not a doctor or nurse in the NICU who did not state as such. In fact, we were told that they had a staff meeting to try to medically explain why Benjamin was normal and no one could.

As is common with preemies, Benjamin was put on strict dietary restriction to watch for necrotizing enterocolitis, a gastrointestinal disease that involves infection and inflammation that causes destruction of the bowel (intestine) or part of the bowel. So even though we believe he could have come home after having the cannula removed, he had to remain in the NICU while he was being weaned off the complete IV nutrition and onto breast milk.

While in the NICU, once feedings started, he went quickly from tube feedings to bottle feedings (both with breast milk) while they let Martha breast fed him twice a day until he was released. He's never had a bottle since and been steadily gaining weight. As of October 12th, 2005, 6-month old Benjamin is in the 80th percentile in weight at over 20 pounds!

We were told that a good rule of thumb with preemie babies is to expect that they will come home around the original due date (for us that was May 22nd) but to understand that Benjamin was "very sick" and it could be much longer. And even then to realize we might have to tube feed him once home. We should also not be surprised if he came home with a monitor that would "wake the neighbors" if it went off. He was released a mere 17 days after birth on April 27th with nothing but the shirt on his back!

As you can see in the pictures below, Benjamin is a completely normal, joyful baby. We are so thankful to God for what He did in Benjamin and we know full well that He was at work. Martha & I had complete peace and confidence during this time that God was in control and we could trust Him and this simply did not come from ourselves. We knew the outcome was in God's hands and that He would do what He wanted to do. And in this case, God choose to perform a miracle for His glory that simply cannot be explained medically. And as much as I want to distill the whole experience down to a secret recipe for success or the 4 things you can do to get your miracle, that is simply not the way God works.

We had tremendous support from family, friends and caregivers. As this story is told, I find people saying, "God must sure have big plans for Benjamin". And I agree, He does, but please remember that His plans are no less significant for you, me or anyone else. Ben is now four years old and doing just fine.



Click the collage above to see a Quicktime video slide show of Benjamin.
This is a very large (221 MB) file so please be patient.

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Benjamin's story was covered in a local newspaper for the Father's Day edition in 2005.
Here's what the editor wrote about it:

ON THE FRONT: Benjamin, the preemie, chose life!

By Glenn Matlock, Editor

June 2005 - We’ve been a first-hand witness to the Benjamin Hill story, our front page miracle baby who recently survived a rare blood condition typically fatal to newborns. We go to the same church as his mom and dad, Steve and Martha Hill. In fact, we recall asking Martha prior to this incident about the baby.

Of course, like everyone else, we were concerned when we heard the baby was so sick and in the hospital. But Benjamin was a tough little trooper. Although he nearly died, Benjamin bounced back and amazed his caregivers.

We heard Benjamin got so irritated with his hospital treatment, he pulled the feeding tube out of his mouth, got up and walked out the front door looking for a McDonalds. I’m joking of course. He got a Reeses cup out of the snack machine. If there’s one thing that can get you up and out of the hospital in a hurry, it’s hospital food.

Benjamin’s recover is a story that will be told over and over again, I’m sure. I pray he tells it to his grandchildren. It’s an amazing story of man’s inability to conceive there is a God, who still performs little miracles now and then. It’s the story of Godly parents, who do their best to fight for the life of their children no matter how young they may be.

It’s also the story of a dedicated Christian father, who spoke with the authority of his heavenly Father when he alerted his wife to a possible problem with the baby in her womb. On several occasions, I’ve spoken similar things in a timely manner to my wife Renee that had life-changing consequences. I’m not bragging. In fact, I didn’t even realize at the time what I was saying, but it triggered something unseen.

In June, we celebrate Father’s Day, but while there are many good fathers, there are others who have neglected their family’s spiritual life and caused much unneeded suffering. I’ve done it myself. Thank God, He still forgives us when we go wrong and heals us when we need it most.

This same little paper did a follow-up article about Benjamin again for the Father's Day edition in 2008. They also published an article on their website about our other two boys who also had some divine medical intervention. That article is here.

June 2005 Article Click the cover image above to read the full article.

June 2008 Article Click the cover image above to read the full article.