Our first born - Bension Benjamin

In Memorial
Our first born - Bension Benjamin


Our first born did not make it past 5 months of development and we had to induce him out and have buried him in Kingston, NY. There, a piece of our lives will remain forever. He was a boy and looked very much like me. He looked like a premature baby with a well defined body, limbs and face at that stage. He has a condition called Gastroschisis (gas-tro-ski-sis).

More on Gastroschisis below

It was not easy at all to deal with the situation and I learned in life that with all the friends and family around us, we were really all alone to deal with that tragedy. Aariela's brother got married on the same day. Their aunt conveniently told their family that she had had a miscarriage, (which is far less serious than losing an actual baby), to greatly reduce the impact of the situation on those that were rejoicing as the festivities may be hampered by the bad news. Another of our close friends decided to go see a concert in NY city while we were struggling with how to deal with this situation.

Well we survived those days and have 3 healthy and pain in the neck kids that consume all out time now, but it would have been nice to have had all 4. I miss him even though we have not spend any time together other than when he was developing and surely heard my voices from the outside world. His image at birth, when I held his lifeless body, has forever been ingrained in my memory.

It is a Benjamin Family tradition to visit the grave site in Kingston NY, every year during the holidays to remember him and pay our respects to one of our own who was not fortunate enough to be with us today.


Benedictine Hospital where the procedure took place which is right next to the burial location.
Sifron was born at this hospital 1 year and 3 months later in January 25th 1995.


Our friends in NY, Tibor and Noemi Spitz, who join us in our annual meeting at the cemetery.



Location of Bension Benjamin


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Gastroschisis

Gastroschisis is an opening in the abdominal wall through which the internal organs push outside of the baby's body. During fetal development the abdominal wall fails to close properly leaving an opening. The opening is usually to the right of the umbilical cord. This anomaly or birth defect is not commonly associated with any other defects except bowel strictures and/or atresias (narrowing of the intestines). It occurs in approximately 1 out of every 5,000 births. The cause of gastroschisis is unknown, but it is associated with younger maternal age and almost never occurs in mothers over 30 years of age. It is not related to anything the mother ate or did during pregnancy.

An amniocentesis is not normally necessary.A syringe is usually inserted through the mother's abdominal wall and through the wall of the uterus into the amniotic sac. Our doctors advised this invasive procedure and this may have been the casue of the death. This is related to the fact the after this procedure the baby did not make it past to the next check up we had and the death was estimated to the approximate time when the amnisynthesis procedure waspaeformend.

So if anybody asks me, I will discourage them from going through the amniocentesis proceude unless they want it to pose a risk to the health of the baby.

More on Gastroschisis at http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/34307/Nav/1/router.asp


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