Many in our midst are longing to have a child, often saying from the deepest well of their heart, “Oh, I’m dying to have a baby!”
In Sheila Bermudez Romero’s case, that wasn’t a hyperbole. It was, in fact, an understatement.
From the second trimester of her pregnancy with her fifth child to the day she gave birth to him in her seventh month, Sheila was in danger of dying. She received extreme unction twice. But never once did she give priority to her survival over that of her unborn child’s.
The night before her Caesarian operation to deliver her premature baby — a son she and her husband Mikee planned to name Steffan Mikel Pio — she told her lawyer to draft her last will. In it, she put this line: “Please tell my children not to get mad at baby Steff if I die.”
A mother’s cross
Sheila and her husband Mikee Romero, businessman, athlete, and now party-list representative, seemed to have it all — a happy marriage, four beautiful and intelligent children, wealth, and good health to enjoy it all.
Both in their early forties, they were confident that their family was complete. Sheila became more active in running her own business as her youngest, Santi, was already 11.
Then on a hectic trip to Europe where they jetted to different cities, Sheila found out she was pregnant!
Upon her return to Manila, her OB-gynecologist told her, “Your baby is a survivor for having withstood all that change in air pressure!’
Mikee and their children Milka, Miguel, Mandy and Santi were all so excited to have a baby in the house. But on her second trimester, Sheila started bleeding. The doctors then explained to Sheila that at her age, there were certain risks to childbearing to some women.
“What made it more worrisome was the fact that I’ve had three miscarriages in the past and the OB said that my body does not recognize human antigen, which was the cause of those miscarriages. But I said, ‘I will fight for this baby’!”
And then, another bombshell from her doctors, Sheila was diagnosed with placenta previa totalis. Placenta previa is a condition where the placenta attaches to the uterine wall, the uterus being where the baby rests.
“My baby was literally sitting on a bed of blood, the placenta. So every movement, stress or fatigue, can cause bleeding,” Sheila relates.
After a week, a third boulder was added to her cross: the placenta previa had developed into placenta accreta, meaning the placenta attached itself too deeply into the uterus muscle that a hysterectomy was being considered after she delivered — if she delivered Steff at all.
“It was really very scary,” Sheila recalls. Her physician, Dr. Ana Marie Madamba, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, assembled a team to prepare for any eventuality. They ordered complete bed rest for Sheila as she bled with every little movement.
Sheila and Mikee were devotees of Padre Pio and St. Rita, the “Saint of the Impossible.” They also sought the intercession of Blessed Maria Teresa Fasce, who was a devotee herself of St. Rita and propagated her good deeds.
Sheila prayed to God for a miracle, with the intercession of Padre Pio. St. Rita and Blessed Maria.
Dr. Madamba didn’t sugarcoat the gravity of Sheila’s condition. She told her, “You know you have the same condition that was the cause of the death of Kennely Binay (wife of former Makati Mayor Junjun Binay.)” Despite the best doctors, and their valiant efforts to save her, no one could save the young Kennely during the birth of her fourth child. Fortunately, the Binay baby survived.
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Fully aware that one foot was in the grave, Sheila did not lose hope. She agreed to be confined at the Makati Medical Center on her sixth month of pregnancy. She was also told that there was a possibility that her bladder would be damaged because the uterus was too far embedded in it and she would be going home with a colostrum bag to facilitate urination. That was distasteful to Sheila, but it was a small price to pay for having her baby.
To complicate things, Mikee was then running for Congress and Sheila didn’t feel it was right to put his life and her children’s lives on hold for her sake, and make them wait around her bed till Steff was ready to be born. Like all mothers, she was selfless, taking the brunt of the worry herself. She couldn’t tell them, “What if I have only two weeks to live? What If I wouldn’t survive all the complications of childbirth?”
Amidst the uncertainties and the fears, “I had no one but God who was constant,” Sheila avows. “I can only surrender myself to Him and ask my loved ones for prayers.” Her close relatives and friends all rallied to her side. To keep her spirits up, she would have a hairdresser from the salon in the hospital shampoo and blow dry her hair. Her bed was her whole world as she was given baths there, she ate there, she received visitors from there. She became an expert on telenovelas as she was glued to the TV screen when she wasn’t praying.
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But there was no denying that with every new day, she was getting closer to either a bloody ending or a miraculous beginning.
“My doctor gave me the worst scenarios that could take place because of the time element,” Sheila recalls.
There was a patient in the same situation who was opened up, only to be closed up again as doctors weighed their options because of the magnitude of the placenta’s penetration of the uterus.
A week before her operation, Sheila, who had already received extreme unction because of the precariousness of the procedure she was going to undergo, was told that there was another option.
Her OB-Gyne found Dr. Mon Santos Ocampo, a specialist in Balloon Occlusion, which few knew of. Balloon Occlusion is a technique that temporarily reduces the blood flow to the main artery to reduce the pressure in the arteries during surgery.
“I was only going to be the second woman in the Philippines to undergo Balloon Occlusion,” says Sheila. The procedure on the first patient was to be performed a day before her surgery. Sheila counted herself lucky that there was going to be some more “practice” for Dr. Santos Ocampo before he performed the procedure on her. It was successful, but the patient used 12 bags of blood and had to be kept in the ICU for a time.
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“I was completely at peace as I was being wheeled into the Operating Room,” Sheila says, showing us the marks on her wrists and on her neck where the blood was transfused into her during the operation.
“Do you now that when they opened me up, contrary to the MRI, my uterus, just kissed the bladder?” she reveals.
On May 29, 2016, at 11 a.m., Steff Romero saw the light of day, bucking all the odds.
“I love you, I love you,” Sheila whispered to her 3.5-lb. baby when they carried him to her before she totally lost consciousness. Because of the Balloon Occlusion, she only bled “in spurts.” She did not have to be confined in the ICU. She didn’t need a colostrum bag!
Steff fights for his life
But the worst wasn’t over.
Although Sheila’s ordeal was over, Steff’s had just begun. Born two months early, he was suffering from pneumonia. According to Sheila, his neonatal pediatrician almost gave up on him because he had difficulty breathing. After his breathing stabilized, he developed sleep apnea!
“But my survivor managed to pull through,” boasts this survivor of a mom. Soon, the doctors weaned Steff from the nasal cannula that helped him breathe.
Just when Sheila and Mikee breathed easier, Steff suddenly caught a virus in the hospital. Since his medicines were administered intravenously, Steff’s veins soon collapsed.
The couple was given a choice: the antibiotics would be administered through the jugular vein or through a vein in the head, which meant they would have to shave the frail baby’s head.
“The head of my little boy with his lush hair will have to be shaved, with tubes in his head,” Sheila cried. Mikee wanted to proceed with the medication that night but Sheila begged for one more day. She stormed the heavens with prayers anew.
When the sun rose the next day, a ray of hope rose along with it: the doctors told Sheila they had found a good vein in Steff’s toe!
“We will not give up, son,” she would whisper to him through the portholes of his isolette.
After two months in the hospital, Steff was finally allowed to go home. From 3.5 lbs., he is now a healthy 11 lbs.
“He is truly our little miracle,” say Sheila and Mikee. “He is our living testimony that there is a God so great and so loving.”
Steff was baptized two Saturdays ago at the Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills. Holding her baby in her arms, Sheila whispered, “You are our little warrior! Take the path God has planned for you.”
Sheila now wants to reach out to other mothers who have high-risk pregnancies through her I Want To Share Foundation and share with them that there are life-saving options. “I live my second life not just to be a mother to my five children, but to help save other mothers and their babies from being deprived of a mother.”
“When I hold Steff in my arms and inhale his sweet baby smell,” Sheila smiles, “I inhale all the goodness of the world.”
(I Want To Share Foundation may be reached at 0917-5727149.)
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)