Category: Christian

To read of his arrival, click here

In the early Sunday morning hours Chad and I held our sweet baby, as the nurses disconnected the wires, monitors, machines, and ventilators. We prayed over his precious soul and body; we loved on him, we sang to him, we cried. His heart rate almost immediately fell to 50 bpm, then 40, then 30, then continued to drop. It took about one hour for our good God to take our baby back home where His will would be accomplished. At 2:45 am our Almighty claimed Christian’s life, and we no longer had our baby. His soul was with Jesus. We were surrounded by our cherished church family, family and friends whom we are forever indebted to. 2 waiting rooms full of tears and sorrow for this sweet child of God.

What happened? Truthful answer: we don’t know. We awoke to him unresponsive, cold, with no pulse Friday morning. He was rushed to the ER by the best firefighters who stayed with us well over the expected timeframe along with a very loving Sherriff who was a first responder. The paramedics were able to get a heartbeat after 15 minutes of CPR. Unfortunately, due to the time with no oxygen, by the time he received an EEG, there was very little brain activity. So little in fact, he could not breathe on his own. He was relegated to a ventilator and machines, and a lot of meds. He was trying to gasp for air the first day, and gave up trying to breathe the second. It was horrifying. But, God was working. You see, Friday, when we found him, he was no longer with us. I was on my knees begging God for a miracle. Please Lord, give him a heartbeat, PLEASE…. and He did. In the ambulance, He did. There was a heartbeat. God did not have to do that for us. But in His merciful nature, He did. A real and true miracle. My parents had just landed in Spain, and to have had to go through the loss so suddenly, without my parents would have tortured us all.  So they got right back on a plane and rushed home. The Lord knew our hearts and knew what we could not handle. He allowed for us to have those 36 hours so we could understand Christian was going to have to be given back to God with “palms open” as my friend Erica would say. Truly, the hardest moment of our lives. We are blessed to have had that time to grieve and pray with our wonderful family and friends. Those moments are precious to Chad and I and we will never forget them.

While we will always try to find purpose and will always bless our good God, we are human. It hurts so unbelievably deep. Every inch of our being aches for the loss of our baby boy. For what has happened, what will not happen, and what is to come. Your prayers, God’s mercies and our children are literally getting us though each day. The day where we are reunited in heaven cannot come soon enough. Until then we will praise our loving God and thank Him for His many blessings in our lives, more focused on His agenda, not ours. Remembering why we are even here in the first place. Thank you sweet friends and family for loving us and helping us through this devestating time in our lives. 

“The LORD is faithful in all His words and kind in all His works. The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.“
                                                                               –Psalm 145:13-14

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
                                                                              – John 16:33

I wanted to thank each and every person who has been praying for us, encouraging my husband and I and just being kind and thoughtful towards our family. Those sweet gestures mean the world to us. God shows His love through His unchanging Word and people-so thankful! Amidst this trial, we have been showered with so much love and generousity- It is kind of crazy to admit this, but YES, your sweet notes, emails, texts, meals, hugs, visits, make it ALL better.
Health is not to be taken for granted. This last couple months has been trying to say the least.  We have been dealing with the pain and well, PAIN. The freak headaches have been a constant. I was having partial complex seizures nearly daily, which made functioning as a human nearly impossible. After 8 days at the hospital, the docs finally sent me home on a pain patch that emits continuous medication to prevent any kind of headache, thus resulting in me being dopey, grumpy, tired, the other dwarfs too. I am still having breakthrough headaches which seems impossible considering HOW much medication I am intaking.   This has been an especially hard month on everyone. My Hubs has been running around trying to make everything work, friends are going out of their way to babysit me, and my littles, people are driving all over to help take care of our kids, our sweet parents are ever present and helping in every area they can. I don’t know what we would do without the love and care of our parents. I am thankful for them in a way words can’t encapsulate. While this has been one of the more painful times in my life, I see the light. Due to a lack of movement and the quantity of meds I am on, we had an amnio this week and the Doc called back to say…..

is the day. Sorry, but the irony had me laughing. Get it? It is also our anniversary. I will be 34.5 weeks and the lungs should be ok. It is a hard thing to weigh the gravity of needed medication versus time in the womb….at what point is this baby better outside of me? There are still challenges ahead: weaning him off the meds, nicu stay, eating/ swallowing/ sucking….those are just the complications we can expect from the doctors. I dare not google. God is leading us, carrying us through this hard time, and our trust is in Him and His plans. We don’t know what is ahead and I believe with conviction that is for our own good. I just wanted to update everyone who has been so faithfully and lovingly praying for us and baby boy. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.