Meet Demi

• Baby Saves

• 05.14.26

“I first heard about Count the Kicks from Tracidoula on Instagram. She had referenced the importance of the app in multiple reels. Once it was time to start tracking my baby’s movement I downloaded it. 

I would do my kick counts at night when she was most active. Every morning during my pregnancy I would take a quiet moment before I got out of bed to feel some motion from our baby. It was our moment to say good morning to each other! 

I woke up on a Monday morning at 38 weeks and 3 days and waited and waited, but didn’t feel my baby that morning before I got out of bed. I couldn’t lie there anymore and needed to get up and start getting ready for work. I had felt regular movement from her during my normal kick count time the night before, so I knew the last time she was OK, but it was unsettling not having felt her that morning. I went to work with the nagging feeling that something was off that day and still fixated on waiting to feel something from my baby. 

Luckily, I work at a hospital/clinic and I have an amazing, angel coworker who offered to put me on the non-stress test (NST) monitor. We watched the strip together for about a half an hour before she calmly but seriously recommended I call my OB-GYN. 

My OB-GYN told me to get to the nearest birthplace for more monitoring as soon as possible. Due to our insurance, my normal doctor was 2 hours away, so I presented up at our local hospital. They didn’t know me there, but they wasted no time getting me back on NST, which still showed no accelerations, just a strong and steady heartbeat. 

Next we did a biophysical profile (BPP), where my baby scored a 2 out of 10 (for fluid only). She scored a 0 on movements and practice breathing. The wonderful OB-GYN (who had literally just met us) told me that my baby needed to be delivered now via an urgent cesarean section. 

Our little girl Demi was born a short while later. She had acidotic cord blood, indicating she had some period of low oxygen. I had a hypercoiled umbilical cord with clots in the cord, which is the suspected reason for her low oxygen. Demi was flown to a larger hospital about 3.5 hours away that had a NICU and underwent therapeutic hypothermia for possible hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). 

After 72 hours of cooling, she had an MRI of her brain and an EEG to watch for seizures. She had no seizures and a normal MRI. 

Now we are home from the NICU and she is living without deficits. We don’t know how long she went with low oxygen, but we know she couldn’t have gone much longer and had the positive outcome we had. I’m forever grateful I got to know her while she was in the womb and counted the kicks. It was the first step on the day she was born to save her life and her future! 

I explored the Count the Kicks website while I was pregnant. You never think it will happen to you, but sometimes you become the ‘other people’ that scary things happen to. 

Moms – trust your instincts! Get to know your baby personally. Every baby is different and it is even true before they are born. You know them best. If you feel like something is not right, go get checked. Even if everything is fine, you get a moment to see and hear your baby and it is never a bad thing. Thank you Count the Kicks for your initiative and education.” -Hannah A., Demi’s Mom