WNY-born doctor helps save lives of mom, baby boy

This Mother's Day will be special for Jennifer and Wesley Chase. Not because it's their first one, but because they're celebrating at all.

When Jennifer was pregnant she started experiencing some unusual symptoms. 

"I noticed some dizziness and double vision,” said Chase.

She went to the doctor and learned she was suffering from an arteriovenous malformation.

“It's sort of a tangle of blood vessels that lives inside the brain,” said Dr. Mark Bain of the Cleveland Clinic.

That's when Chase, a West Virginia mom, met Dr. Bain, a Buffalo-born brain surgeon. He says Jennifer and Wesley's situation was a difficult one.

“The longer we waited for Jennifer’s baby to mature, the AVN could potentially bleed and rupture. But at the same time, if we delivered the baby at 25 weeks, it could have been very harmful for the baby and the baby might not have survived. So, we were in a little bit of Catch-22 on what to do,” said Bain.

Once the baby matured, Bain and the rest of the Cleveland Clinic took action. They drilled a hole in Jennifer’s head to monitor pressure in her brain. They then preformed an emergency C-section and delivered Wesley. The next day, they performed surgery in Jennifer’s brain to fix the blood vessels.

Now, both Wesley and Jennifer are healthy.

“Anytime you have a good patient outcome, it's a good feeling. But, in this situation, we basically had two good patient outcomes,” added Bain.

After a long ordeal, the family is back in West Virginia, excited to celebrate their very first Mother's Day.

STORY FROM CLEVELAND CLINIC