a smitch of sparkle: May 2012

Just a little story, for those of you who don't know why we call Tate our miracle baby...

Five years ago (after my water broke at home late one night - 3 weeks before my due date) we were headed to the hospital to welcome our third child into the world. Instead of the "birth center" kind of labor and delivery I had experienced with the girls, I found myself in the unexpected position of being in the middle of a very non-active labor, watching the monitor tell us our little man's oxygen rates were dropping, and dropping, and not coming back up.

Around 7:00 a.m. we started prepping for an emergency c-section and at 7:24 a.m. Tate was born with a low heart rate (less than 60 bpm), not breathing. The doctor and his team performed 15 minutes of CPR and took him from the room without us knowing his status. I knew something was "wrong" but of course they don't tell you anything when you're laying on an operating table. Still, I cannot begin to explain to you the peace Matt and I were surrounded by - but I am certain it is the peace we read about in Philippians 4:7.

We finally got to see pictures of him that they let my mom take in the nursery, but since he was under constant monitoring, we had not gotten to see or hold him yet. We were told that once they got him going, he seemed good to go, but that Cook Children's was coming to get him for a couple days stay in the NICU for observation and testing. They came to get him by ambulance, and when the team brought him in to see me before he left, one of the paramedics told me he was the healthiest baby she had ever picked up for transport.

I got to snuggle him, and tried to soak up every second, for I knew it would be two days before I'd get the chance to do it again. We ended up rooming in 5 days at Cook's (Tate was there a total of 7) because those monitors pick up every episode of apnea and he was making them go off late at night. He had an amazing team of doctors and nurses there, and we are forever grateful for the care they gave him during his week visit. Family and friends surrounded us; took good care of our girls, prayed for our little guy and me, came to visit us, and ministered to us in a hundred different ways.

Even with tests and scans and lots of poking and prodding, they never found an "explainable" reason for Tate's issues at birth. We believe, at the very least, God reveled Himself to us during this time. We came to know Him better, we realized we could explicitly trust Him - no matter what the outcome was to be, we felt very safe and secure in His love for us in the midst of it all. And we can have that confidence in Him because of this experience.

Today, Tate is a curious, busy, curly-headed blessing. He is the child who randomly comes up to me multiple times every day and says, "I love you, Mom," or "I need a hug." He is a "typical" jumping off furniture, digging in dirt, wrestling, ball-throwing boy. He gets "minute bears" at school for not listening and at home he's often too rough with his brother. :) But he has the most amazingly tender heart and he moves my heart in ways that are simply beyond words. He is a constant reminder of the grace of God.

When days are hard, when we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, when we just don't understand why the things that are happening - are happening; let's remember all that we have been given and treasure it for the blessing it is.

I didn't go dig out a ton of photos, but here are a few from the past couple of years...