When you have to live the nightmare...

     This post will throw off my chronological order for the blog.  I have been trying to start from the beginning and tell my story in an order necessary to understanding my chaos.  However, for some reason, I just can’t get this one off of my mind.  To be honest, these stories are some of the main inspirations for the blog itself, but I have dreaded writing them down.  I don’t know how retelling these accounts of motherhood will affect me emotionally.  I’m the kind of person who can survive a difficult situation with what seems like great strength, but I go home and break down completely.  I can stand strong while a doctor makes me sign for my baby to be put to sleep so that they can run an emergency test on her airways.  Then, a week later, I wake up in a cold sweat and sob into my pillow while my husband reminds me that it’s over and she’s okay.  I praise God for strength in the storm.  I can suction out the throat and nose of my 7 week old baby to make her breathe while my husband drives us to the local ER to figure out what is wrong, but then I sit here and shake at the memory.  I praise God for a quick reaction that I know was not in my own strength.  SO, to get this blog off my back, I’m just going to write it already.  Then maybe it will dive back down into my heart where I normally guard it.

            When I had Princess, I feared everything as a new mother.  I would watch her sleep, as if it was me watching that made her breathe.  I worried constantly about everything, real and imagined.  At 13 months old, Princess got sick, and my life changed forever.  We woke up with her crying in a strange new way.  We had been trying to get her to sleep in her own room, but she was very strong willed so it was a struggle.  Luckily, we both immediately knew her cry was different.  We thought maybe she had croup, but she didn’t cough at all.  It was her breathing that was funny.  Dean took her outside and tried to calm her down.  When she did clam down, she slept on my chest for the next several hours.  I thought maybe she had cried too much and made herself raspy.  At about 3 am, I took her to bed with me and we slept for about 2 ½ to 3 hours.  I woke up several times and it seemed like she was sleeping well, but still breathing funny.  At about 5:30 am, Dean called his dad to come look at her and see if we needed to take her to the dr.  It was a Saturday, so we’d either have to go to the ER or wait for an after hours clinic to open.  When she woke up, it seemed she got worse and worse, so we all decided that the ER would be the best choice.  She was obviously scared by this time.  Our local hospital is very small with no pediatrician.  When we got there, we received immediate attention.  This made me relieved, but scared at the same time, because I knew it meant they thought something serious was wrong.  Princess was born and began vaccinations at a time when the HIB vaccine was in a shortage, and that put her at risk.  The doctor thought she might have epiglottitis.  I had no idea what that meant, but I knew to fear it.  They decided to med-flight her to a larger hospital about an hour away.  My husband and I had to decide who would go with her on the helicopter (only one parent was allowed) and who would drive our vehicle over with supplies we would need for a hospital stay.  Dean, in his great love for me, let me go.  Maybe he worried about me driving over, but he knew my parents would drive for me if necessary.  I truly think he knew I needed to be with her as her mother and made the sacrifice.  I’m glad.  The flight was life changing.  One thing everyone who knows me knows about me is that I’m afraid of almost everything, heights and flying topping the list.  However, I would do anything for Princess.  I sat in the back of the helicopter with her in a car seat strapped to the gurney.  They were giving her a breathing treatment at the hospital that was taken with us on the flight (we landed before it was even finished).  They gave me a helmet and some emergency instructions that I would rather have not known.  My helmet had a plug on it that the lady in the back with me could plug in to her own helmet and talk to me through.  It stayed unplugged for all but about 45 seconds when she told me everything was going ok.  The rest of the 12 minute flight was silent.  As I sat there, I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life.  I looked at my baby, sitting there exhausted, struggling to breathe, but peaceful.  Then, my eye rose to the window next to her.  I saw out of the window a mountain range that I had seen hundreds of times from a different angle.  It was magnificent.  It was breathtaking.  It was awe inspiring.  I had been in a constant state of prayer the entire morning, but at this point, the prayer changed.  I had been saying to God all night and morning things like, “Please help her to be okay.”  “Please make me strong.”  “Please keep her safe.”  At this point, it hit me.  I loved Princess as much as I could possibly love anything, but God loved her more.  I wasn’t even capable of loving the way he does, yet here I am thinking I could convince him to heal her because of how much I loved her.  My prayer became this: “God, I know Your will is perfect.  I know you love Princess more than I can even understand as a human.  I don’t know what Your will is, and I don’t want to think that the outcome could be bad, but she’s Yours.  I lay her down in your hands at this very moment.”  I can’t say even now that saying that prayer made me immediately feel at peace, but I knew my heart was right with God for the first time since Princess was born.  She had become an idol.  It’s so easy for that to happen to mothers I think.   However, in that moment, I turned away from the idol and turned back to God.  I jokingly refer to it now as a “Come to Jesus moment”, but all jokes aside, that is exactly what it was.  I would also like to say that that prayer made everything else easier, but it didn’t.  When we landed, we were met by no less than 13 members of the medical staff.  Among others, there was a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, a pediatrician, and several nurses.  I had to sign papers allowing them to 1. Put her to sleep, 2. Let them run a tube down her throat to see if she did in fact have epiglottitis, and 3. Begin a tracheotomy if necessary.  Can you imagine a dr. looking at you and saying that they may have to do that to your child?  Even now, I don’t know how I did it without crying, but I did.  All of this was said in a matter of minutes as we walked from the landing to the OR.  I praise God for a strength that wasn’t mine.  I was completely alone.  Everyone in the world I knew was somewhere else, and those who were on their way to the hospital had no cellphone service.  I had no idea where in the hospital I was, and didn’t even know where the waiting room was.  A nurse took me to a waiting area for about 5 minutes, and another nurse came and took me to another waiting room.  It was completely empty, but I recognized it.  Three years before, I sat there while my dad was in emergency surgery after a tree fell on him.  I praised God in that moment for miracles of the past and for miracles to come.  The sweetest nurse sat with me as I waited.  She tried to talk to me, but I honestly don’t remember anything she said.  She would pat me on the hand and reassure me.  She told me that when the waiting room phone rang, she would answer it.  I praise God that I didn’t realize why she wanted to be the one to answer.  Soon enough, someone called out and said that they were out of the OR and took me to recovery.  The sweet nurse left me with the recovery nurses.  Princess slept.  Dean called, and was outside of the hospital.  The recovery nurse took my phone to where she could get signal and talked him through the turns and elevators to where he needed to go.  I praise God for people who care enough to go to trouble for a mother who must have looked like a wounded rabbit.  We were moved to the PICU and told that Princess did not have epiglottitis.  She did have croup.  For some reason, her reaction to croup had no cough and there was no warning.  It hit suddenly and at full force.  We stayed there for about three days and she improved each day.  We survived.  We took some scars with us, but I learned so much about God and my relationship with Him through the experience.  She suffered from croup a lot the next two years.  It prepared me for things to come.

            Fast forward about two years.  I woke up exhausted at 7 am to seven week old Tank crying for a bottle.  As he ate, I heard Tinker Belle cry out in an alarming way.  I looked over into her bassinet and saw that she was awake but not breathing, though struggling to do so.  It was such a surreal moment of realization.  It was my worst nightmare; it was years of irrational fears made rational.  I screamed out to Dean for a suction bulb (the thing you use for snot in a baby’s nose) and picked her up.  I had taken a first aid class, so I knew what to do for a choking baby.  I also knew she wasn’t choking on an object, but I had to do something.  I laid Tank down on the bed as fast as I could and picked her up.  This action alone helped her to gasp a few times before she locked up again.  After a few minutes, Dean had torn the entire house apart and finally found a bulb.  I stuck it in the side of her mouth as far back as I could and suctioned her out.  It helped.  I did the same in her nose and told Dean to call his dad (his parents have always lived across the street from us).  He was there faster than I could even imagine.  Dean got ready and my father in law held Tinker Belle while I put on some clothes.  I can’t imagine how bad we must have looked when we got to the ER, but once again, we were treated immediately.  We were there quite awhile until she seemed to be breathing with no times of hesitation.  At one point, the entire ER staff must have been in there. I praise God for medical personnel who love children.  We were moved to same hospital that Princess stayed at, but via ambulance due to extreme fog.  Tinker Belle was such a trooper, she went through numerous tests that I know were unpleasant, and often didn’t even cry.  They even put tiny needles in her head to monitor her brain at one point, and she didn’t throw a fit.  I praise God for her gentle, calm spirit.  In the end, she was diagnosed with severe reflux.  She simply wasn’t strong enough to work up the vomit she needed to while she was asleep.  I was once again changed.  After a three day hospital stay for not only her but her mother, father, and twin brother, she was sent home on an apnea monitor.  This was more for my peace of mind than anything else.  She was put on medication to help with the reflux.  When we first got home, I would lie down at night exhausted, and say this prayer: “God, they are Yours before they are mine.  I know You love them.  I am blessed to care for them, but Your will is perfect.  Protect them as You see fit, and I will praise You no matter what.”  I try to always remember to say that prayer.  I have three beautiful, healthy children today, but I know that in life, sometimes your worst nightmares become your reality.  I praise God that my nightmares ended happily, and realize that not everyone has that experience.  I pray for those mothers who cannot say the same.  If you are one, this is my prayer for you:  “God, please touch the hearts of those who have suffered unthinkable loss.  Please touch those mothers who are living a nightmare today.  God help them to know that you love them more than they could ever know.  Please help them to feel your arms around them.  Help them to know that there are other mothers praying for them to have peace, healing, and faith.  Help them to know that Your will is perfect no matter what happens in this life, and You are just.”

I hope that by writing what to me feels to be the most exposing post I could write, someone has been encouraged.  For me, this is the equivalent of the dream of going to school in your underwear becoming a reality by choice.  It wasn’t easy, but if it brings glory to God, it is worth it.

    

Tinker Belle in the hospital

Princess one month before her med flight.