Following a short morning's sleep, we made our way over to Primary Children's to see our Nathan boy. It was the first time we had ever seen him from close up. It was such a sad sight.
Nathan was hooked up to the ECMO machine. Two really big tubes were were surgically inserted into his heart through the right side of his neck. Due to the sensitivity of the tubes and their position, Nathan had to been on a medicine that completely paralyzed him.
Additionally, he was also on a high oscillating ventilator that provided him with over 600 breaths per minute.
He was also hooked up to number of monitors that kept track of his heart rate, his blood pressure, and the amount of oxygen in his blood in two different places.
So Nathan just laid there. Motionless. With goop on his eyes. And unexpected to us, he was very puffy. Apparently, one of the side effects of being on ECMO is that the baby's body tends to retain a lot of water, making him very swollen.
Because of all the machinery and monitors, we were basically only able to touch his head and his feet...and sometimes a hand.
Because Bekah was still recovering and because there wasn't really very much we could do, we didn't stay very long.
Later that afternoon, I made my way back to back to Nathan's room by myself, just so that I could be alone with him, father and son. My heart ached to see him there. Both of us so helpless.
But then the most amazing thing happened. It was like the sun began to shine directly on my soul. I looked around, but didn't see anything. But I knew that angels were there present in the room that day. And in my heart I knew that Nathan would survive. I just knew it. For the first time during the entire 4-month ordeal, I knew it.
Thank you for sharing your story. It's been a bit of a lifeline for me over the past few days. After an initial misdiagnosis, we learned yesterday that our unborn baby has a cardiac defect known as trasposition of the great arteries. When he or she arrives in March, the experience - as its been described to us - will be much look yours in terms of the baby needing immediate intervention to breathe followed by rapid transfer to the Children's Hospital across town. Reading your story has both helped me to begin the process of preparing and to take comfort from Nathan's story. Thank you!
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