Never, EVER shake a baby! Just walk away!

Stop Shaken Baby Syndrome, Inc.

Chelsea’s Story  ~ as told by her mother, Shannon

February 14^th, 2008 was the seventh anniversary of the day my daughter Chelsea was diagnosed with Shaken Baby Syndrome. Every year on Valentine’s Day when lovers are exchanging gifts and sharing romantic dinners together, I am reminded of the day that changed not only her life but the lives of me and my oldest child forever.

 

Chelsea was three and a half months old when she was shaken by her father. I left for work that morning at 3:45 am; I was a baker then so my hours were 4 a.m. until 12 p.m. I looked at Chelsea before I left for work as I usually did and she was sleeping soundly in her bassinet at the end of our (her father and I) bed. I worked at a bakery in Montpelier, Vermont which was about a half hour from where I lived in Barre, VT.

 

When I finished my work at the end of the shift I would bag up bagels from the bakery and deliver them to another location in Barre on my way home. I did this every day without fail for months, and when I got to the other bakery I would usually stay about a half hour and chat with the woman who worked the counter. 

 

On this day by some blessing from God and I don’t know why but I forgot to grab the bag of bagels I set aside for the other bakery, and hadn't even realized it until I was five minutes from home. I thought about going back to get them but something kept pushing me forward until I was in my driveway.

 

I was met by Chelsea’s father who was standing on the back porch visibly upset with tears in his eyes, and the closer I got to him the more upset I could see he was and I started to jog and then run. I was frantically asking him what was wrong and as I was running past him he was saying over and over again that "she stopped breathing", "she stopped breathing" and then he was yelling that he gave her CPR when I ran to her crib and immediately picked her up and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

 

When I lifted her to my chest her back arched and she was so stiff, she didn’t even make a noise, I wasn’t even sure if she was alive. With tears in my eyes and running to the phone I was yelling her name. I looked down at her hoping for a response and one of her eyes went diagonally to the top corner, while her other eye stayed put. Seconds later my Chelsea was screaming while I was on the phone with 911.

 

The EMTs came and while I was trying to tell them that Chelsea had had Apnea at birth and that was what was wrong (because I was convinced that this was why she had stopped breathing), but they were ignoring me and even belittling what I had to say. Looking back, I see now that they knew something more than what I knew. Chelsea was rushed to the hospital the next town over. I rode in the ambulance with her while her father took my other child (who was three years old at the time) in the car behind us.

 

Upon reaching the hospital, Chelsea was rushed away from me and her father and I were escorted in to separate rooms with police officers. I honestly had no idea what was going on all I wanted was to see my baby. The officer started asking me questions about my relationship with Shon (Chelsea’s father) and where I was that morning and if I had ever seen her father abuse her. At this point I was completely out of my mind, I didn’t know why he was asking me these things.

 

Then he left me there alone for a few minutes, when he returned he told me that Chelsea had a fractured skull. I was screaming so loud, all I wanted was my mother… I was screaming for my mother and my babies. The officer walked me out to the room where doctors were surrounding Chelsea and I was able to look in from the door way, then one of the doctors moved from being in front of her and what I saw will be burned in my mind forever.

 

My beautiful baby girl, my Chelly-belly was laying there, not moving, and she had a needle through the top of her head where her soft spot would be. I felt like I wasn’t even in my own body, this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. I just stood there.

 

A nurse pulled me aside and I started to scream for my mother and my other daughter again. I just couldn't stop screaming for my mother. My mother lived in Massachusetts, where I was from and was about a three hour drive from me. The nurse brought me to a room where there was a phone so I could call my mom. I called her house phone several times with no answer, and then I called my grandmother’s. My grandfather answered the phone and I was screaming for my mother. I remember hearing him call to my grandmother and saying "Rose, there’s some woman on the phone and she’s screaming and crying". He didn’t even recognize my voice. My mother was at my grandparent’s house and when I finally got her on the phone I could barely tell her what was going on. My grandmother and mother left immediately for Vermont from Beverly, Massachusetts, in the middle of a snow blizzard.

 

Shortly after I got off the phone with my mother, another nurse along with a social worker came into the room where I was and explained to me that Chelsea did not have a fractured skull as they had said but that she had Shaken Baby Syndrome and that she had fluid around her brain and the swelling had pushed apart her not-yet-fused baby skull, which was why it looked like she had a fractured skull. I was somewhat familiar with what Shaken Baby syndrome was because I had lived in Massachusetts during the Matty Eapon/ Au Pair case, but I hadn’t heard anything else about it except that the child had died after being shaken.

 

What were these people talking about, I wondered? There was so much going on that I didn’t have time to process anything. The nurse told me that Chelsea had retinal hemorrhaging and that was a clear indication of Shaken Baby Syndrome, and she was also blind and deaf at this point. In this small town in Vermont the hospital was not capable of taking care of her and there was a helicopter on the way to take her to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The helicopter was only able to take one other person and because I had my other daughter with me and Shon had left at this point to get his father I would not be allowed to go along.

 

Waiting in the waiting room for almost four hours for my mother to arrive seemed to last forever. I was lethargic, numb. My other daughter, Kathleen, was still in her pajamas and only had socks on her feet; she was running all over the waiting room and I couldn't move.

 

When my mother and grandmother arrived we left right away for the normally one and a half hour drive to Lebanon. This day there was a terrible snow storm and white-out conditions. Along the entire stretch of the highway there were police and vehicles in ditches and tow trucks in ditches with other tow trucks trying to get them out after failed attempts of trying to get cars out. It seemed as though we were the only car that was moving at all and we weren't even going fast at all. I prayed the whole way there. It took about three hours before we got there.

 

Most of the rest of that day is a blur to me. I was like a walking zombie. Chelsea stayed in that hospital for 30 days, from Feb. 14th until Mar. 14th. While she was there she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, Cortical Visual Impairment, and Epilepsy caused by Shaken Baby Syndrome. Her prognosis was that she would be completely lethargic, blind, be in diapers for the rest of her life, never talk, walk, or eat food without a feeding tube.

 

Chelsea has overcome so much in her short seven years. Chelsea talks at about a four-year-old level, she crawls, eats like a pig, and is just a gift from God in every sense of the word. Chelsea had major hip surgery when she was three years old for hip dysplasia caused by her brain injury and does not yet walk or use the potty. This year we are possibly having to look at another surgery, this time on her leg for high muscle tone caused by the injury to her brain.

 

I want more than anything in the world for people to know what happened to Chelsea and our family that day so another child doesn’t have to go through all that she has been through.

 

Never, ever shake a baby or small child.  Just walk away!

 

Chelsea in the hospital at four months old, after she was shaken by her biological father.

Chelsea today, at 7 years old.  She cannot walk and has had to have several surgeries due to side effects of her brain injury from being shaken.