by Natalie Rimlinger
In January 1992, our first pregnancy was confirmed and at that time I knew *nothing* about heart defects. On 5th September 1992 the most beautiful baby boy was born, Benjamin Jean Eric Rimlinger.

Ben was fine until his cord was cut as he was living off my blood supply. I remember the nurses taking him from me almost straight away (I did get to cuddle him on my chest for a short while) and 'bag' him to try and make his colour better as he was very blue.

Within 5 minutes of his birth, Ben was taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Several hours later, Ben was diagnosed with Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage and an Atrial Septal Defect.

When he was 8 hours old we were asked whether we wanted to leave him on life support, knowing that he would die sometime during that night, or did we want to turn the ventilator off and let him die in peace. We chose to let our boy die peacefully and we turned the life support off. At 11 PM the night that he was born Ben died within seconds.

He would be 10 this September (2002) and not a day goes by that I don't miss him. Thank you for doing a project like this to raise the awareness of Congenital Heart Defects.

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