My youngest son, Deacon, was born premature due to a placental abruption. I had planned on giving birth at a birth center but when I started having contractions and bleeding at 35 weeks my midwife urged me to go to the hospital. Once at the hospital the nurses checked me over and said the bleeding was “normal” and if symptoms continued or worsened to come back and sent me home. That was at 8am. Around 8pm I told my husband we had to go back. Something was wrong and I knew I needed help. A new nurse was on shift and after checking me over she looked me right in the eye and said “I know you don’t like hospitals, I know you wanted a natural birth, but I need you to put that aside and put your trust in me right now. There is something wrong with you and with your baby. He needs to come out now. Can you trust me?” I nodded and they rushed me to surgery. While performing my c section they found that my placenta had ruptured and I had been bleeding internally, likely for hours. My placenta was shredded. My umbilical cord was completely filled with blood. My son had been without oxygen for an unknown amount of time. I could hear the doctors talking but I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. All I remember is praying on repeat. “Lord, please don’t take my son.” Over and over I begged. My husband had his head against my head and I could hear him crying and I heard his prayer, “Father, please don’t take my wife.”I finally found my voice and asked where my son was. What was going on. Why was no one saying anything about him. The same nurse from before squeezed my hand and told me “He’s alive. He needs help, but he’s alive.” The next few hours are a bit of a blur. The anesthesia plus adrenaline hit me hard. I know they took him to the NICU right away. I hadn’t seen him yet but my husband was able to be with him. A few hours later my husband and one of our son’s doctors came to my room and told us Deacon needed to be transferred to a Level 4 NICU. He was really sick. He was intubated. He aspirated too much blood. His lungs and stomach were filled with it. He was unresponsive. They didn’t know if he would make it through the night. They didn’t know what the extent of the damage to his brain from the lack of oxygen would be so they wanted to cool his body, put him in a temporary coma, to stop his brain from swelling. We were told it was highly likely that if he survived he could have severe brain damage as a result of the abruption and we should plan on him being in the NICU for a while. My husband went with him as they transferred him to the other hospital. I can’t say when it exactly happened but I felt an overwhelmingly strong feeling, not even a feeling, I KNEW, that my son would be ok. I did not need to be afraid. He would wake up strong and he would be healthy. I checked myself out of the hospital early so I could be at the NICU. For the next three days my husband and I sat in the hospital room and prayed over our son, hard. Our friends prayed. Our three children at home prayed. After three days they warmed his body back up, they took him off the meds that kept him in the coma, had MRI’s done on his brain, and told us it was a wait and see game. On that third day he woke up. On the fourth day he was extubated. His brain scans came back completely clear. No bleeds, no swelling, no dead spots, no seizures. The doctors were shocked there seemed to be no damage from the lack of oxygen. I was able to hold him for the first time on day six. I was able to nurse him on day ten. He pulled out his cannula and ng tube on day eighteen and on day nineteen we brought him home. It was Christmas Day. The miracles I witnessed God preform on my son were wondrous. It was extremely traumatic but with every prayer I was filled with peace. I felt the prayers of our friends and family. It was tangible yet not. While Deacon will have checkups with neurology these first few years, he isn’t showing any signs of being delayed at all. He is now five months old and he is the sweetest little miracle boy directly from God.
Eryn, reading your stories and experiences while I navigated this was a huge blessing. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Love,
Devin Fauss
