Mom with potentially fatal tumor puts unborn baby first

by John Jalsevac

• October 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When Sadie Stout found out at 6 ½ months pregnant that she had a potentially fatal tumor on her heart, she was given three options: undergo immediate surgery to remove the tumor, have an emergency c-section and have the baby and then have the surgery, or wait longer for the baby to develop before doing both.

Each of these three options carried significant risks, reports The Toronto Star, where Stout’s story first appeared.

Surgery to remove the tumor had a 30% chance of killing her baby, having an immediate c-section delayed the surgery to remove the tumor by precious minutes, putting Stout’s own life in serious jeopardy, and the same went for waiting longer.

Stout was given just 24 hours to make up her mind – and though she made her choice immediately, it wasn’t an easy choice to make.

She told The Star that friends and family urged her to put herself first, and undergo the surgery to remove the tumor despite the risks to her child. “They intimated that Stout could always have another baby if she were healthy,” reported The Star.

“They weren’t saying it meanly,” Stout said. “They were saying that I hadn’t met the baby yet, that I wasn’t attached. But even when I was pregnant, Bentley was my whole world. I would never choose myself over him.”

Stout made the decision to undergo the emergency c-section. Though her child would be born 2 1/2 months premature, the c-section provided much better chances of survival for him than undergoing the surgery to remove the tumor while still pregnant.

“I decided I would have him before doing anything with me,” she said. “I wanted him to have a chance to survive before me. There was no way I would be able to do the surgery while being pregnant knowing there was a chance he would die from it.”

Stout’s son Bentley was delivered healthy on September 24, weighing just 3 lbs. 

Stout was able to hold her child briefly, before being prepped for surgery to remove the tumor, which happened 36 hours later.

The surgery was successful, and five days after that Stout was discharged from the hospital and given the chance to see her son again.

“I had so much ambition to be good for Bentley that made me get up and get better sooner,” Stout told The Star.

“I knew, in my heart, he would be okay.”