COLONIE, N.Y. (WRGB) — What started as a difficult birth and a possible scary diagnosis for one Colonie couple’s baby has now landed their little boy in the running for a national Baby of the Year contest.
Brent and Nicole LeBlanc say their son, Brady, overcame a series of health challenges in his first days of life.
Brady was born two and a half weeks early following a challenging labor in which Nicole developed an infection.
“So when he was born, they had to monitor him for that,” Nicole LeBlanc said. “But he also had complications with his blood sugar and his temperature.”
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As a result, Brady was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Soon after, doctors began discussing the possibility that Brady had Hirschsprung’s disease.
“It’s some sort of bowel problem that he’s born with,” Nicole LeBlanc said. “There’s an issue with the nerves where his bowel can’t tell that it needs to do what it needs to do in a certain part.”
After two days without going to the bathroom, doctors took X-rays that showed the possibility of Hirschsprung’s disease. However, before further testing could take place, Brady’s condition appeared to improve.
“Of course, as soon as we got to Albany Med, he went to the bathroom,” Nicole LeBlanc said. “So luckily we kind of ruled that out.”
The scare proved to be the first of several challenges Brady faced. His parents said he later experienced two episodes of sleep apnea during which he stopped breathing.
“They had to kind of jostle him to get him to start breathing again,” Nicole LeBlanc said.
Doctors believed the sleep apnea was related to Brady being born early and that his body was still adjusting.
At birth, Brady was in the seventh percentile. Now, at nearly 6 months old, he is in the seventieth percentile.
“Honestly, I just saw it on a whim,” Brent LeBlanc said of entering Brady in The Honest Company’s Baby of the Year contest. “It just randomly popped up and I’m like, you know what? He’s a little miracle baby.”
Brady is now a quarterfinalist in the contest, and voting continues through Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
If he wins, the family will receive $25,000, and Brady will appear in a national advertising campaign with The Honest Company.
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