Our precious Josiah was born a happy and healthy 8.6 lbs, right at home! It was a truly amazing experience. Birthing a child is amazing in itself, but a home birth was just over the top enjoyable. It allowed for his 3 older sisters to hear their brother’s first cry from just outside the bedroom door and see him just moments later!
But when he was only 1 month old we had a huge scare.
Early one morning I brought Josiah to bed with me to nurse. We both fell asleep, of course. A little while later I got up, but left him on my bed sleeping, swaddled up and on his side. As I went about my morning business, I continued to check on him. He eventually squirmed onto his belly. I was nervous about him sleeping on his belly, but his head was clearly to the side and I was pleased he was still sleeping. I decided I would continue checking on him.
I brought 2 of his older sisters downstairs to begin school and checked on him regularly. I saw that he was able to move his head from side to side which was reassuring, though it didn’t set me completely at ease. But the final time I checked on him, he was face down in my bed. Panic stricken, I quickly rolled him over and was SO relieved to see he was breathing, but I was still horrified.
He was struggling to breathe and most of his face and head was a grayish blue. The rest of his body was completely pale. He had gone limp and was hanging motionless in my arms, with the exception of slight movement in one arm. I quickly called my husband and told him to come home immediately. Then called 911 and my mother. Poor Lucy and Mariele heard I was frightened so I yelled down the stairs to them that they needed to pray for their brother. When I came down they saw Josiah and I. One look at him and they knew things were not OK. They were so sad and so unsure. I told them to go to the other room to pray for him. As they turned to go I called them back. “Girls!” They turned around.
“Girls, no matter what happens, remember that God is good, He is always good.”
I sat to wait, the wait was short, but seemed like forever.
Jesse arrived and the ambulance arrived shortly thereafter. They immediately gave Josiah oxygen and asked me to stimulate him. “Try to tickle his toes.” “Stroke his belly with your nails.” “Talk to him.” “Keep touching him, keep stimulating him.” Jesse and I followed their instructions but we were terrified. Now, my husband is a worship leader so music is constant in our home. And there was one song that stood out in my mind during this time. We had recently moved away from our beloved church family of 7-8 years and on our last Sunday there we sang this song. I continued to sing it throughout my pregnancy. I had my husband sing it to me when I was in labor, and we’d sung it to Josiah every day since his birth. So in shaky, unsure voices, we sang it to him now:
“The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning. It’s time to sing your song again. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.“
I didn’t realize the weight of what we were singing in that moment. It wasn’t until later that I realized just how true that second line was to me at that time.
I was reminded of what a good friend of mine told me after losing one of her babies at just 3 months old. She said she learned how to truly enjoy and appreciate every moment, even in the chaos. In that moment I had no idea how much time I would have left with Josiah but I was determined to love him and enjoy him!
Back-up help arrived. Jesse and I brought Josiah into the ambulance, they hooked him up to equipment to monitor this and that. Jesse, unfortunately, was not allowed to ride with Josiah and I (due to space). Josiah seemed slightly better, but not his pinkish, alert self. His eyes were closed and all I could see was that he was motionless and pale. They reassured me he was still breathing. I just asked God to send angelic assistance, though this came out more in “groans of the Spirit”, no clear thought other then, “descend and attend!” I do remember clearly praying “Jesus, I trust Josiah to you. I trust you.”
As we drove to the hospital, he continued to breathe and I was able to stroke his head and speak to him in the midst of all the chaos. When we arrived at the hospital, they transferred him from the gurney to a bed. Finally, his eyes opened and he began moving. Gradually everything looked stable. I eventually convinced the nurse I should try to nurse him. She agreed. I brought him to me, he fussed a little, then latched on and started nursing. I was so relieved, as this was his normal behavior. He had come around and was beginning to act himself.
Now he is beautiful, normal and healthy. We are praising and thanking God! I’m so glad this didn’t end in tragedy. One of the EMT’s came back a few days later and said he was convinced that I had gotten him just in time.
This post would not be complete without a little baby safety. SIDS is most prevented by:
- Laying babies to sleep on their backs. (To ease my mind, I’ve been taking a good 10 minutes or more to burp Josiah and let him spit up after nursing before I lay him down.)
- Keeping blankets clear from their face (and tucked into the bottom of the bassinet/crib so they cannot pull them over their face).
- Keeping animals and pillows clear from their face.
- Not sleeping with your baby.
- Laying your baby to sleep on a hard surface (not an adult mattress, duh).
- The occasional belly laying makes babies way more likely to experience SIDS.
- See article on preventing SIDS from Parents.com
But here’s what I really learned through my experience:
While I had no confidence the situation would turn out in my favor, I knew that God is good. One of the girls’ memory verses are: “You are good and what you do is good” (Psalm 119:68). However, the world we live in is a mix of broken and beautiful and Satan is prowling the Earth seeking to devour, to steal, to kill and to destroy (John 10:10).
This truth has been profound through many events, but through this one with Josiah in particular:
The things that are true about God remain true about God regardless of my circumstances.
1 Comment
This really struck a chord with me because I had a close call- so I thought anyway- with one of my own, my first baby. You have to remember that nearly 40 years ago, nearly ALL children were put to bed on their tummies and that was what I did with all my kids, what all my friends did with theirs too except for the occasional baby who liked being on his or her back. We simply didn’t know any different. It was explained to us that if the baby spit up while on their back, they might aspirate or inhale it and possibly not be able to recover. We all knew what that might mean so it made ‘sense’ to us.
We decided to move our three month old son to his room though still in the bassinette. He had been sleeping throuugh the night more often than not then and we thought it was just ‘time’. He was still small enough to be in a bassinette but would soon be moved to his crib. Our usual routine that first two weeks was the same. He was nursed to sleep, burped all the same, and laid down to sleep like every other night. Yes, there had been nights he slept part of the night with me, another very controversial practice now. I did this on ‘fussy’ nights. I used to sit up with my arm around him and he laid on his back after the midnight nursing, and if it occurred to me I’d return him to his bed. I slept so lightly that even a sniffle or a movement woke me. I never gave it a thought other than being scolded by older women who told me I was spoiling my children, that once in the bed they’d never want to leave it. It was something I did with every one of my 5 children, even the youngest. But I digress…
Little Moses was in his room about two weeks, and he’d been sleeping through the night by then with just an occasional wake-up. Then something happened. I woke up one morning and as soon as I opened my eyes I knew something wasn’t right. It was far too light in the room. Why was it so light in the bedroom? Suddenly, I knew exactly why. Moses hadn’t cried to be fed at the usual 6-6:30 am feeding. I can’t even begin to tell you how the terror filled my heart, the cold chill of fear firmly lodged in my chest… As I ran to his room, I said, “Dear Lord please, please let him be okay, oh my God, please help me!” I looked into his bassinette where he was about as I left him, covers just up to his shoulders, head to one side, but because of the way the blankets were not tucked tight, I couldn’t immediately see if he was breathing. In the paler light of his room, I couldn’t fully assess his color especially in the condition I was in which was full panic. Just because I was a nurse made no difference- I was a mother possibly making one of the most heartbreaking discoveries of all.
I wasn’t very gentle about pulling the covers back and immediately flipping him over to see him completely and at the same time shouting his name loudly, “Moses! Wake up, honey, WAKE IUP!!!” My poor son instantly flailed his little arms and legs out, then began to kick, instantly screaming and crying from the terrible way I woke him. He’d been fine all along, but just the thought that he might not have been had me as scared as he was. I hugged him to my chest, rocking, crying, telling him I was sorry for scaring him so badly, but that Mommy was scared too. I kept praying to Jesus, thankful my little boy was alright. I remember crying a good while as I nursed Moses, but prayers of thanksgiving were repeated several times through the morning.
I had plenty of time to reflect on how many mothers had a very different experience than I’d had that morning. There’s no way to sugarcoat an unexpected infant death from SIDS or any other sudden medical condition we might not have known our child had. I’d been able to thank the Lord because my son was fine, yet I knew I also needed to pray for all the mothers who had lost their little ones. For them there was no sigh and cry of relief, and I found myself crying anew for all of them. It was a profound moment in what would turn out to be many years of mothering. I don’t think I ever took many moments for granted no matter how messy the house might have gotten, no matter how behind I might have been on laundry, and I even lost most of those odd feelings about no longer spending as much time with my friends without my children. It’s no wonder so many of my friends were also mothers.
I look back in time with a surreal sense of having dodged tragedy so many times just because of the way we mothers had cared for our children. We all thought we were doing our best, armed with our “Nursing Your Baby” books by Karen Pryor, and our child care manual by Dr Spock. Some of the items on your baby safety list used to be standard mothering, not just for me but for nearly everyone I knew. We’ve learned a tremendous amount of information over just the last 10-15 years, and when I compare ‘mothering methods’ with my daughters, I am amazed at the differences. Breastfeeding is much more accepted in our country than it was when I had my first child 37 years ago. Formula is no longer a sign of affluence and being ‘modern and scientific’ in child rearing- not that there is anything wrong with it for those who need to use it, but the breastfeeding stigma is nearly gone now. Just the change of laying babies on their backs instead of tummies is an enormous shift in child care. When I was a child there were no car seats for infants or toddlers. Children were laid on back seats, held by another parent or siblings, yet a few people had improvised various ways to harness their little ones so they weren’t hanging out windows and such. For that matter, most cars didn’t even have seat belts for the adults. Baby monitors are so common now when a few decades ago they were luxury items. Home birth is so much more accepted and I had no idea it was so common. Even hospitals have evolved with ways babies are delivered- no more delivery rooms, everyone goes through labor and their post-partum care in the same room and just about anyone can come in and visit almost immediately- nothing like the very strict visiting hours of old when moms were kept in the hospital for 5 days and no one held the snuggly swaddled babies but mom and dad.. The old ‘sterile nurseries’ are nearly a thing of the past except in the cases of very sick babies. I think most of the changes have been good ones, certainly backed up by more science and studies than we had years ago.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that experience with Josiah. And yet your faith remained steadfast and true, especially having your children pray for their little brother immediately. I know it’s a terrible thing to consider, but if things had not turned out as well as they did, I sincerely believe it would have been your faith in our Savior that would have been your strength, your rock, your peace, and His healing would have arrived right on time because as you said so well, “God is good, regardless.” Thank you for sharing your experience and your words with the world… beautiful message.