Seema Seburn holds baby Myah after a standard birth that could have been anything but. Now two years-old, Myah is happy and healthy.
“Dear Stephanie, if not for your diligence we likely would not be holding our newborn daughter, Myah, today,” reads the opening of a heartfelt handwritten letter from Arryn and Seema Seburn. With it came a small plant, a photo of baby Myah, and a visit back to Health Sciences Centre from the Seburns themselves.
“She helped saved my baby’s life,” says Seema Seburn, as Myah soundly sleeps against her chest. “I wanted her to meet the baby she helped save.”
At 32-weeks pregnant, during a routine ultrasound visit, a Diagnostic Medical Sonographer named Stephanie Johnson noticed something was wrong. Fetal blood vessels were running across the internal opening of Seburn’s uterus. If Stephanie hadn’t spotted this often-missed and difficult-to-detect condition, Myah could have broken the vessels during delivery, causing her to heavily hemorrhage. The operating room would only have 10 minutes to save her life.
But instead, knowing this condition was present, doctors delivered Myah safely. Today, she’s a happy baby, and Seburn is grateful for each member of the HSC’s diagnostic team who helped her during her pregnancy.
“I want people to thank the other equal members of their team: be it the physiotherapist, technician, the health care aide. All allied health professionals. They’re the reason why doctors can do their jobs effectively. The doctors are backed by such great teams.”
Seburn wonders what would have happened to Myah if it weren’t for Stephanie. Would Myah have survived? Would she have had developmental complications?
“I don’t have the words to express how grateful I am to Stephanie and the entire diagnostic team,” says Seburn. “I’ll often catch myself just thinking ‘what if?’ But I’ll always remember that she caught it because she’s simply great at her job.”
Myah, pictured at 6 months-old. “I don’t have the words to express how grateful I am to Stephanie and the entire [HSC] diagnostic team,” says her mother, Seema.
Seburn felt like she was in good hands at HSC. As a nurse herself, she says her experience made her proud to be a part of the health care profession.
“We have a healthy baby girl now,” she says. “Everything worked out the way it was supposed to work out. I can’t thank HSC enough.”
Myah pictured today, now 2 years-old.
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