Clayton Wilson - CMN Miracle Child

Clayton Wilson is a happy and healthy four-year-old. He is full of laughter and stories and loves to hike. All of this is a far cry from his very scary beginning.

Clayton’s parents, Tim and Amy, were elated to find out they were expecting a child.  Recalls Amy, “We prayed for a baby and when the pregnancy test came back positive, I wrapped it up and put it beside Tim's plate at dinner time. I told him it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long time.  He opened it and agreed.  We were going to be parents!  Yay!  We called everyone we knew.”

Like most expectant parents, Tim and Amy did everything possible to have a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby. “My husband pampered me; I took vitamins and ate well.  We took hypnobirthing classes and natural birth classes. The only class in which I turned a little green was the talk on cesarean births.  I could not imagine those needles or those cuts! Little did I know then that the procedure would save both my baby and my life.”

The Wilson’s were living in New Hampshire during the pregnancy – but were in Belfast, Maine for Amy’s family’s annual Fourth of July celebration. Tim returned home the next day and Amy woke up not feeling well. “I was nauseous and had some back pain.  I started to bleed and my mother rushed me to the local hospital, Waldo County General Hospital, where our son Clayton was delivered by emergency cesarean section.”

Later, doctors later told Amy and Tim that if they had been even ten minutes later in getting to the hospital their son would not have survived. “We had experienced a placental abruption (the uterus and the placenta had separated), and Clayton and I had both lost a lot of blood,” says Amy.

A transport team from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center came to get Clayton. He was intubated and put on a respirator.  When Amy was finally able to get to EMMC, she was shocked. “We never expected to find ourselves there,” she exclaimed. “It never occurred to me when I was pregnant that my baby and I could die in childbirth. That is why we do all we can to support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. We can never repay all that was done for us, but we can pay it forward so that others will hopefully have the tools they need to save their children and their families.”