NEED TO KNOW
- As Eric and Cristina Conklin prepared to welcomed their first child, they learned that their son had a congenital heart defect that would need immediate treatment after his birth
- When Bennett was born, he was immediately rushed to the NICU for the first of what would become multiple procedures
- Their baby — now nearly 1 — has scars from his heart surgeries, which Eric chose to replicate as a tattoo on his own chest
One New Jersey dad is determined to show his young son that his surgery scars are a source of strength — so, he got his own version tattooed on his chest.
Eric Conklin welcomed his first child with wife Cristina last fall. He tells PEOPLE that when the couple began dating, it “felt like a fairytale.” They quickly fell deeply in love and had their perfect wedding, then bought their dream home.
He kept thinking, “We’re so lucky, we’re so lucky, we’re so lucky. How did I get this lucky?”
Then they got pregnant — and what Eric, 36, didn’t anticipate was that their baby would be diagnosed with a congenital heart defect that would put him on life support and lead to two surgeries within the first few months of his life.
As he and Cristina, 35, prepared to welcome baby Bennett, they were told 20 weeks into her pregnancy that he had pulmonary atresia, a condition in which the heart’s pulmonary valve doesn’t correctly form.
While the condition posed no threat to Bennett in the womb, the couple was told it would require immediate intervention after his birth; without a fully formed pulmonary valve, they explain, blood would be unable to flow from Bennett’s heart to his lungs.
Bennett was born on Oct. 7, 2024, after which he was rushed to the NICU of New York City’s Mt. Sinai hospital, where doctors placed a balloon in his pulmonary valve when he was four days old. The new parents had to wait to see their baby and couldn’t hold him because he was intubated in his NICU bed.
While the surgery was a success, Bennett went into sudden cardiac arrest at 10 days old.
“Doctors rushed in, there was probably within 30 seconds about 20 people surrounding his bedside,” Cristina says.
After administering chest compressions — during which Bennett flatlined — a doctor asked if the couple would be willing to put their son on life support. They agreed.
“We were just kind of in a stunned shock, but still feeling some hope there because we just knew that we were in the only place that we could be for him to have a chance,” Eric recalls.
His parents anxiously sat by Bennett’s bedside after he was put on an ECMO machine, which removes carbon dioxide and oxygenates blood to be sent back to the body.
After six days on the ECMO, he underwent his first successful open heart surgery at just two weeks old. He was able to come home with his parents two days before Thanksgiving.
Five months later, he underwent a second surgery, which was also a success. When he is between three and five years old, Bennett will undergo a third surgery.
Throughout Bennett’s hospital stays, Eric realized he wanted to get the tattoo of his son’s scars that now covers his chest.
“I want to wear what he wears. I want him as he grows up to be able to look at me and say, daddy looks the same. Daddy has what I have,” he says. “It’ll give me a way to be able to say, I am in this with you.”
Eric got the ink on Aug. 26, almost 11 months after his son’s birth.
The tattoo is Eric’s second; he also has a drawing of Italy on his right arm that was a tribute to his great-grandfather. He always wanted another tattoo, but knew his next would need to have meaning, too.
Cristina says it was “heartbreaking” to see their baby’s scars, and she thought Eric’s tattoo idea was “great” when he first mentioned it in the hospital room.
During a recent trip to Florida not long after he got the tattoo, Eric took his shirt off to swim.
“Just me being with my shirt off in the pool kind of wearing it, I feel complete having it there,” he says. “It feels very good to look down and see it there.”
Eric says the tattoo is a representation of the “emotional scar” that their family will carry, but adds, “that’s okay, and we’ll deal with it. We’ll deal with the differences of life, but we’ll deal with it together as a family.”
He and Cristina now want other families going through similar experiences to know that they’re “not alone.”
These days, Eric says Bennett is “a very, very happy baby.”
“He gets fussy like babies do, but in general, he’s smiling, giggling, laughing all the time, and he sleeps through the night for us as of now, which is incredible,” he tells PEOPLE.
Doctors are also happy with how their little patient is progressing, and the proud dad notes that his son is “moving up the charts” in growth.
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Eric loves his life with Cristina and Bennett in their “happy home,” but now, he thinks, “there was no luck involved.”
“The universe knew that this special little boy that was going to need a lot of care was coming into this world one way or another,” he says. “It was the universe setting us up to make sure that we could take care of this little boy.”
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