Precious time

Tears well up in Nick Stout’s eyes as he remembers going home to work on the farm and picking up food at McDonald’s.
They are trips he never would have taken. They represent precious moments lost.
Katie Runyon can barely bring herself to speak about that day in late May. She simply tries to keep herself from crying as she clutches her daughter Kadilynn.
Theirs is a story not of regrets about time lost because they focused on job or hobbies rather than children over the course of a lifetime. It’s a story about time they never had with their son, whose life was measured not in years but in hours.
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Katie had a problem-free pregnancy. Ultrasounds showed no signs of issues. The process of childbirth went smoothly.
Jonathan Leon Stout — named after his grandfather and great-grandfather — was healthy when he came into the world at 2:03 p.m. on May 29.
About 11 a.m. the next day, a nurse noticed some problems when she went to change his diaper.
Jonathan had not been eating as much as he should have. His color wasn’t quite right.
She suggested putting him on some oxygen.
“And then it went quick,” Nick said.
Four hours later, Jonathan was dead.
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Nick fully expected to be taking his son home with him to begin creating a lifetime of memories. Had he known what would happen, he would not have left Jay County Hospital.
When he returned to the facility that Saturday, the look in Katie’s eyes told him everything.
“When I walked up into the nursery part, I saw her face, and it was like the flip of a switch,” he said. “Everything was going bad so quickly. Now I look back, I would have never went to McDonald’s. I would have never went home. So every second or every minute’s very valuable.”
Their time with Jonathan after the problems arose was limited. Nick, Katie, Kadilynn and Hugh Kelly, pastor at Fellowship Baptist Church in rural Portland, spent the last two hours with him together.
Having a Cuddle Cot could have extended that time from a couple of hours to a couple of days. It’s not much when weighed against a lifetime lost, but it would have meant the world for a mom, dad and sister in mourning.
A Cuddle Cot, made by the British company Flexmort, is a cradle with a cooling unit that can be used in cases of miscarriage, stillbirth or death within the first six months of life.
By keeping the body cool, changes that occur after death are slowed.
The goal is to allow parents more time — up to 48 hours — to hold, take photos of and otherwise bond with their child.
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Brittany Irvine is a friend of Amelita Hime, Jonathan’s grandmother. Her son, Brantley, was stillborn in 2012.
Time with Brantley was also short. His little body already had bruises and skin tears when he was born. Most of the immediate family was able to see him, but one of Brittany’s sisters couldn’t make the drive from Illinois in time.
“She could not meet him. She couldn’t hold him,” said Brittany, emotion overcoming her. “It would have meant the world to me, because she would have got to meet her nephew. Everybody else did, except for her.”
After the experience, she dove into research. As part of that process, she stumbled upon the existence of the Cuddle Cot. She teamed with another family that had experienced a similar loss to raise money for a unit to donate to Reid Health in Richmond.
Then she decided she wanted to do more, founding Indiana Cuddle Cot Campaign.
The goal is to raise enough money to purchase a Cuddle Cot for any hospital in Indiana that would like to have one. So far, that list includes Riley Children’s Hospital in Indiana’s, Community Hospital’s birthing center in Munster, Memorial Hospital in South Bend and Perry County Memorial Hospital in Tell City.
And, because of Brittany’s ties to Jonathan’s family, Jay County Hospital was selected to be the first to benefit from the campaign.
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The staff at JCH did everything it could to keep Jonathan alive, a team of doctors and nurses surrounding him.
Efforts were made to have a helicopter transport him to Riley, but weather prevented such a flight. Instead, staff members from Riley had to make the drive from Indianapolis. (Neither JCH nor Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie had the equipment necessary to care for Jonathan en route.)
“I almost have flashbacks every day,” said Nick. “I stood in the nursery and watched them work on him — three doctors and four or five nurses — his chest just pounding and fighting to live, forever.
“I never left the window. I stayed there. I can remember (Dr. Mark) Haggenjos yelling on the phone with Riley about them not wanting to bring the chopper. It was real emotional, for doctors and everybody.”
The Riley staff made it to Portland, but proved to be too late. Jonathan was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. May 30.
An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be Tetralogy of Fallot, a heart condition that effects just 0.05 percent of newborns. It is a defect that includes a hole between the lower chambers of the heart, an obstruction from the heart to the longs, the aorta lying over the hole in the lowers chambers and the muscle that surrounds the lower chamber being overly thick.
The result is that blood does not carry enough oxygen to the rest of the body.
Surgery soon after birth can fix the problem, but in Jonathan’s case signs of the condition didn’t manifest themselves in time for him to be saved.
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Katie and Nick never thought about the possibility of losing Jonathan.
Most don’t. The birth of a son or daughter is supposed to be a joyful time.
But after their own experience, Nick and Katie realized how much more common it is than they would have thought.
Two cousins had been through similar situations. A friend had lost a child as well.
“We’re a small community and you don’t think it’d ever happen to you,” said Nick. “I never would have thought it would happen to us …”
“It happens, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody, that’s for sure.”
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The Indiana Cuddle Cot Campaign is in its early stages, having raised about $200 since beginning less than a month ago. The cost of a Cuddle Cot comes in at about $3,000, which includes the cooling unit, “Moses Basket” and shipping.
“I feel like it’s very important,” said Amelita. “I hope this gets here and gets put in a closet and never gets brought back out. But everybody says, ‘It can’t happen to me.’ And, unfortunately, it can. It does.
“I think the neat thing about this is it just allows the family more time with their babies before the process of death begins.
“I just think that, if this happened to you, you would want it. I think after that two hours, it’s when you get home and you start think, ‘Wow, I didn’t look at his toes.’ It gives you more time to process those thoughts and those things you’ll realize later that you might have missed.”
The campaign has a web site at http://indianacuddlecotca.wix.com/iccc as well as Facebook and GoFundMe pages where donations can be accepted. Those interested in donating locally can also contact Vicki Delzeith, director of marketing and foundation at JCH, at (260) 726-1811.
The plan is to raise money continuously, and to buy a Cuddle Cot for a hospital each time the $3,000-mark is reached. Jay County Hospital is first on that list.
“The benefit is really for our patients,” said Jay County Hospital CEO Dave Hyatt, “to give them more time in the grieving process when they lose a child, having the time to say their goodbyes.”
Nick and Katie wish the equipment had been available for them, and are hoping it will be there soon. They know first-hand how much and extra day, hour or even minute can mean.
“You definitely need more time, you know,” said Nick. “In a situation like that, you never want to walk away or leave the hospital.”