Robert Michael Wood was born on April 15, 2015 at 3:55 am weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces and 20 inches long. Robbie was born by c-section after 4 1/2 hours of no progression. There were a few complications at birth. Robbie had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and he had swallowed meconium which resulted in him not breathing spontaneously on his own. He had to be intubated and taken to the NICU for further evaluation. He quickly made a turn around and was able to breath on his own but stayed in the NICU to be closely monitored.

Throughout the night Robbie had some issues breathing correctly and at 22 hours of life he began having seizure activity. He was again intubated and was given medicine to control the seizures. He was taken for an MRI, which revealed that he had suffered an Arterial Ischemic Stroke. Most of the damage was seen on the right side of his brain and a small amount on the left side. The seizures became worse and very hard to control. They were happening continuously and Robbie had to be sedated and medicated very heavily. While connected to the EEG it showed continuous seizures for about 2 1/2 weeks until the doctors were able to find the correct medicines to help slow them down. Due to being sedated, Robbie was fed through a feeding tube.

As the seizures began to slow down, we were able to start holding him a little more.

Mom and Dad were by his side every single day as well as guests in and out daily. There was so much love for Robbie and an incredible amount of support.

Robbie fought every single day and improved a little more each day.

On April 24th the ventilator was taken off and he was breathing on his own again!!

April 26th they took off the EEG and we finally got to see our babies beautiful brown eyes.

May 7th Robbie had to have a feeding tube surgically placed so that we could soon take him home.

On May 15, 2015 Robert Michael Wood was finally going home. He was such a strong boy in the hospital and pushed every single day to show that he will get through this.

We had an amazing team at Rush that got our baby boy through the hardest time ever and helped us bring our boy home.

Soon after Robbie came home a group of close friends created The Robert Michael Wood Foundation to help with medical needs and to help other families get through the difficult challenges that come from a pediatric stroke.