LEWISTON – Sasha Emond had imagined for months the day when she would finally give birth to her son. She would cradle him in her arms and see how much he resembled her and his father.

Instead, Odysseus Emond was whisked from his mother’s Central Maine Medical Center hospital room in an incubator and rushed to the intensive care unit for newborns.

Emond cried as she waited for hours before she was allowed to see her son, wondering what happened and getting no answers, she said. The doctors would say only that her son might not survive. When she finally got to see him, he didn’t look the way she had imagined. His frail body was criss-crossed by wires and intravenous lines. His face was swollen and nearly featureless, she said.

“His head looked really bad,” Emond said Friday, a day after she and her son were awarded nearly $8 million in what may be the largest jury decision in the history of Androscoggin County Superior Court.

CMMC’s lawyer, Christopher Nyhan of Portland, did not return calls from the Sun Journal on Thursday and Friday. Now 22, Emond, who lives with her baby’s father and his parents, was 16 at the time of her son’s birth. Her eyes welled with tears as she remembered how the happiest day of her life turned tragic.

Her son was born with cerebral palsy, his brain starved of blood and oxygen for a prolonged period.

She had to wait nine days after Odysseus was born before she could hold her son, she said. “I was relieved with joy. I was crying,” she said. After 17 days, she was able to take him home.

She took him to a pediatric neurologist in Portland. That doctor said Odysseus would be mentally retarded due to the lack of oxygen.

Grueling trial

The hospital medical staff had never mentioned any possible problems with her pregnancy, or during her 14-hour labor, despite an apparent fetal distress signal on the baby’s heart rate monitor, Emond said.

The two-week trial was grueling, dredging up nightmarish images from the birth gone awry, she said.

“His life got ruined before it even started,” she said, gazing at a photo of her son. “It is sad, but what can you do?”

It took the jury two days to wade through all the medical testimony and arrive at its decision: $6.71 million for Odysseus Emond and $1.25 million for his mother. The money for her now 5-year-old son will be put in a trust in his name. Emond hasn’t given any thought to what she might do with her award.

It wasn’t her idea to file a lawsuit, she said. Her future mother-in-law (she is planning to marry Odysseus’ father) Alice Mercier, had proposed possible legal action.

“I was thinking, ‘Somebody has to step up and be accountable.’ If something happened to us, who would take care of him?” Mercier said in the living room of her apartment, a small wheelchair parked in one corner. One wall of the small room is covered with photos of a sandy-haired boy peering at the camera.

Nobody in her family imagined jurors would give Sasha Emond any money for her pain, suffering and emotional distress. But they did.

‘So horrible’

She doesn’t blame anyone, neither the hospital nor the midwife named in the lawsuit, she said. She’s focused on getting on with her life and helping her son get on with his young life.

Odysseus was named by his father for the hero of Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey.” Norman Mercier Jr., who shares his parents’ cramped apartment with Sasha and their son, has long had an interest in Greek mythology, he explained.

Odysseus is like his peers at Farwell Elementary School, where he attends kindergarten. He likes TV, playing with his toys and trying to sing along with movies.

Unlike most 5-year-old boys, Odysseus doesn’t walk or crawl. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t cry. At school, besides recess and lunch, his day includes occupational therapy; physical therapy and speech and language therapy. His development is closer to that of a 5-month-old, Alice Mercier said.

He has seizures that ball his rigid body into fetal shape, a grunt emanating from his throat. That’s when it’s hardest for Sasha Emond, who can only comfort her son by holding him. Once, the seizure wouldn’t stop. He turned gray and was rushed to the hospital, she said.

Her plans include getting a therapy dog for Odysseus, returning to school to earn her high school diploma (with only a handful of credits to go) and having their own house, a ranch to make it easier for Odysseus to get around.

Most of all, she plans to leave the past behind.

“I don’t like remembering because it’s so horrible,” she said.