The Night Before The Nightmare

This time last year I THOUGHT I was stressed. Dustin and I had been scrambling all around Alabaster trying to put the final touches on our kid’s upcoming school year. We started the morning off at the Parks & Rec of Alabaster to register two children for cheer-leading. We then went down the list of schools making sure we stopped at all of them to turn in the extreme amounts of paperwork and school supplies. We registered a 6th grader, 4th grader, 3rd grader and kindergartner. I must have signed my name a million times before lunch rolled around. We took Kyle Ryan to get his hair cut, and we battled the crowds at Target and Walmart as we put the finishing touches on his supply list.
All while doing this, Taytum was in tow. I remember what she wore that day. A super cute overall dress with a big, sunflower bow. Adorable. Every stop we made people would tell me how cute she was. She was so good that day.

I was four weeks postpartum. I was still sore from that thing- you know- that thing where they cut women open and yank a baby from their insides. Yeah, that had me pretty down and out. But, a mother of many can’t be “down and out” for long, so I drug myself around Alabaster that day. I remember being in the isle of Walmart crying because I couldn’t find any pink erasers. No pink erasers for my sweet kindergartner. Life was over as I knew it on isle two because their were NO pink erasers.

When we finally got into the van, Dustin told me he would take the night shift. He told me I needed to sleep tonight. (I think he saw a part of me, he’d never seen on isle two of Walmart and he, himself, was terrified of the monster I let slip out..) Hell, I’d take it. A full nights sleep? Hell. Yes.
I had no trouble falling to sleep that night. I remember groggily waking up here and there when I’d hear Taytum crying or Dustin shuffling around.

And then it happened.

Dustin flipped on the bedroom lights and yelled at me that Taytum wasn’t breathing. And, that’s when my life forever changed. There was my sweet, sweet Taytum, except she didn’t look like my Taytum. She didn’t have her sparkling blue eyes and her reddish tinted skin (ginger problems..) She was grey. A color no baby should be. A color no mother wants to see.

I remember Dustin yelling at her and scooping her up. She took a big, deep breath and then she was really, really red. I can’t even remember much after that. I remember yelling at Haley to call 911 from the living room. I remember our small three bedroom apartment being flooded with firefighters. I remember just staring her in the dining room as firefighters looked her over. She was fine. Was it a false alarm? Had we overreacted? Were we so tired that we had dramatized the entire situation? It wasn’t seconds after the fire fighters stepped out our front door that Taytum stopped breathing again. That color grey, again. It was two times too many, and by this time Dustin and I were running past the firefighters to the van so we could race to the hospital. We were about five minutes from Shelby hospital, but I made it in under two. I ran every stop light and stop sign. I remember running inside the emergency room (looking undoubtedly crazy) yelling at the lady behind the desk that my daughter wasn’t breathing.

We were rushed to a room where a team of doctors and nurses stared at my precious daughter. She wiggled and cooed and I think she even smiled at one of them. I remember thinking in my head AGAIN that we had gone crazy and their was nothing wrong with Taytum. The small room quickly filled with our family and doctors and nurses left to tend to other patients. Minutes past and, again, it happened. This time my Dad took his turn in the hallway yelling for help as Taytum’s lifeless bodied laid on the patient’s bed.

The next three hours were a blur. Taytum was facing having to be incubated- something the nurses and doctors at Shelby weren’t comfortable doing for a child so young. I had to trust that the flight team would care for Taytum on her way up to UAB while I followed behind them. It was close to 3 AM by this point, and I must have done 90 MPH the entire way to UAB trying to desperately keep up with the emergency crews that had my sweet daughter.

I remember seeing Taytum from down the hallway as we were walking into the RNICU floor. They were calling some code and within seconds Taytum was surrounded by a million doctors. Doctors were running out of rooms to get to Taytum and suddenly the hallway got longer and longer and I felt like I was never going to get to her. I remember this lady making me answer all these questions and she made me tell her again what had happened at the apartment. I kept looking over her shoulder at Taytum and all the doctors and nurses that were pricking and prodding her. Little did I know, they were giving her CPR in all of this. Her little body had just given up. I remember yelling at her in my head, yelling at her to cry, CRY, CRY. I just wanted her to make a noise, but she wasn’t.
And, that was it. We were shuffled to a family room where we waited, alone. We cried. Dustin vomited. I watched the sun begin to rise. They came and got us and told us we needed to go to their complementary “sleep rooms” so we could rest. We reluctantly followed. We were exhausted.
We laid quietly in this dark, hotel-style bedroom and cried until we fell asleep. It wasn’t until later I found out that these rooms were designated for parents that were facing the loss of a loved one. Here we were, sleeping on this bed that was stained with every brokenhearted parent’s tears that had just experienced something in their worst nightmares. In that room hearts had shattered, hopes were buried, and prayers were left unanswered.

This was the scariest night of my life. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, and I experienced things I will never forget.

The NICU is the most heartbreaking and the most joyfulness place ever. It’s the saddest and happiest place, all in one. I walked the halls of both the RNICU and Children’s NICU for weeks, as I anticipated test, surgeries, and outcomes for Taytum. I prayed for every baby on that floor.
I don’t even know how to put into words what I learned in the NICU. God showed me things in the NICU that changed my perspective in life. God is in control. God is a miracle maker. God loves you. God does not make mistakes. God is good, all of the time.

I stressed and stressed and stressed over Taytum’s condition. With every surgery we were faced and every bad test result I got, I would stress. Every time doctors would round, I would stress. Every time Taytum would DESAT or would need O2, I would stress. It was until I found myself on the nasty floor of the hospital, yelling at GOD to take control and letting go of all of my fears and completely trusting in Him, that things started to turn around.

I watched 2 pound babies thrive. I watched as they took a three pound baby off of oxygen and the baby breathed on his own for the first time. Three pounds. Our neighbor’s baby wasn’t expected to live after being born with a rare disease, but I watched as they loaded up three weeks later and went home. I saw miracles happen daily. I was surrounded by God’s work in true progress. He had his hand on all of these babies, including mine.

I also watched as a baby took it’s last breath. I watched as nurses with tear filled eyes, unplugged machines and wheeled them out of the hospital room. As much as it painfully hurts me to write, I watched as a doctor comforted the small, lifeless body because there was no family. No family. None. The Lord called that child home. No more pain, no more suffering.

It was in the NICU where I learned just how much God loved us. He gave His only son so we could have internal life. He sacrificed his own son. Here I was begging God to not take Taytum from me. I was so selfish and so angry with Him. I couldn’t have been as strong as God. He really loves us. It wasn’t until I was facing loosing my own, that I realized the magnitude of that. I tell people all the time, the NICU changed my life.

Today Taytum and the crew went to Zapopans and ate lunch with grandparents. Taytum doesn’t have her g-tube anymore. Taytum isn’t on oxygen anymore. Taytum doesn’t take any regular medicine anymore. Taytum hasn’t been to Children’s hospital in over 5 months.
Taytum is alive, thriving and well. She is walking, babbling, and growing with every day. She is my beautiful, blue eyed baby and I love her more than anything. She is my fighter, my daughter, and my NICU graduate.

If you’re reading this, this is my testimony in the power of prayer. I talked to Jesus more the three months I was in the NICU then I ever have. I talked to Him just like I was talking to a friend. I cried, I laughed, and I poured my heart and soul out. He knows my strengths and my weaknesses and He saw me through it all. I look back on the entire experience and I can almost picture him standing with me in the apartment when I found her, standing with me at Shelby when she stopped breathing again, and I know for a fact He was with me when I was walking down the long hall of the NICU while I watched doctors performing CPR on Taytum. Most of all, He was with Taytum.
When we propose a question to God, sometimes He answers ye and sometimes He answers no. Sometimes He doesn’t answer as fast as we hoped or He doesn’t give us the answer we had wanted. Sometimes when He withholds that answer its not because of lack of concern but because He loves us- uncontrollably. He wants us to apply truths that He has given us. He wants us to fallback on our faith and understanding of His words. For us to grow, we have to understand and trust enough in ourselves and our Heavenly Father that He will give us the strength and confidence to make the right decisions in life. In time, He will always answer. He will never fail us.