Journal Entry-- The Happiest and Saddest Day: Remembering Gabe

Seven years has almost diminished the feelings and fears of the happiest and saddest day of my life. After five years of a hard persuit of fertility and the chore of test after test, we were about to realize the sweetest fruit of parenthood! I remember going to the Doctor the morning of October 9 to have the doctor strip my membranes. My mom met us after for breakfast and off to the mall with my sister Sarah for a “good, hard walk” I wanted to be done with the wait and finally have something I could show for these nine long months. So any little thing that would bring about this blessed event was alright with me.
After lunch I was feeling labor coming on and was feeling contractions. I called Todd at work and he came and got me to head over to the hospital to be checked. I hadn’t really started feeling pain, just pressure, so I wasn’t sure if they were going to let me stay or send me home. It seems like they never let first-time moms stay when they first are feeling labor. So I wasn’t sure either, but since we only lived two or three minutes from the hospital, I was okay with that, too. The nurse ended up being a friend of the Sparks family that I met as we traveled Europe. She checked me and said that I could stay. So they started hooking me up to various machines and monitors. We started watching the machine when a contraction came. Todd was intrigued with being able to tell when I would contract.
Later that afternoon, the Doctor came in and checked me and said that I could have the epideral anytime, so he broke my water and sent in the anestisiologist to get the epideral going. Things were moving along, but not so rapid! By midnight I was sick and throwing up! I couldn’t stop through the whole night and I felt bad because Todd was the one helping me out since I couldn’t get out of bed and knowing that he has the most squeemish of stomachs made the situation even more miserable! Finally at 5am—12 hours after my water was broken, the doctor came in and said that I could finally start to push! I pushed and pushed until after 8 am! 3 long hours of pushing, but there was no baby. I looked at the doctor and told him “I have nothing left”. He agreed and said that we were going to prep me for an emergency c-section. That was a little frightening to me. Finally, 45 minutes later, while trying my hardest to stay awake, they brought my little baby son up to my face and showed him to me. I remember thinking how beautiful he was. Todd followed the nurse out to clean him up. All I knew was that I needed to sleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open! So they sewed me up and took me to a room to sleep for a while.
The next thing I knew was that Todd, my mom, Todd’s parents and the doctor all filed into my room. The doctor told me that I had a beautiful boy and that there were some problems that we were dealing with. He told me that he was born with a hole in his diaphragm and while he was in utero his intestines had been pushed through into his chest cavity, collapsed his lung and moved his heart over. He said that the life flight team from Primary Children’s medical center had flown down and were getting him ready to fly him up to Salt Lake.
I was in a stupor. I couldn’t hardly understand what was going on or process any of this information. Todd was very emotional, which always makes me emotional. The Doctor and nurses gave me mortality rates for diaphragmatic hernia and it made me worried that I would have a baby after all this! A little later they brought my baby boy all strapped into the special isolette which he would make his first flight into my room. Todd and I weren’t able to hold him, just touch his foot and take a quick picture of the three of us—our first family picture! We were both trying to hold back the tears, but no use! Todd and our families followed the life flight team out to the helipad to watch our baby take his 11 minute flight from Orem to Salt Lake.
Todd’s parents took him up to Salt Lake to be with the Baby since I was in no shape (just having had surgery) to go up to be with our little one. Later that night, Todd returned back to my side to report to me what was going on with our little baby. He was going to have to have surgery as soon as he was stable. He had needed a transfusion that day. We were so scared at the chance that we could lose our new little son. I asked Todd what we should do. He said to me that there was nothing “we” could do! He then offered up a prayer that I will always remember. He and I both realized that we were helpless! We knew that we had to turn this completely over to God. We knew that he was the one that could save our little child. We told him that we had the faith that what ever he did was alright and we had faith in him that this little boy would always be a part of our family even if it wasn’t in this life. It was the most difficult thing to do to turn it over to the Lord. To have the faith to say that “his will be done”. At that time I felt a little like Abraham. This son that we had waited so patiently for, and for us to be able to have the faith that we could keep him with us and raise him. Talk about bitter-sweet!
When he was two days old he had surgery to fix his diaphragm. The surgery went well. The next day Todd picked me up and took me up to PCMC to see my baby Gabriel. When I walked into the NICU, he was laying under the lights because his billyruebin was off and he had on these little eye goggles and looked like he was laying in a tanning bed. He had a chest tube and so I wasn’t allowed to hold him! He didn’t look sick at all! Especially in the NICU next to all the preemies. He was 8lbs. These babies were all under 4 lbs. Here was this big barrel-chested baby that looked totally healthy!
The next morning was Sunday morning. I received a phone call from the church office building. It was Elder Zwick. He said that he heard that we had a baby at Primary Children’s Med. Center. He said that Elder Richard G. Scott was going to be up there later in the day and wondered if we wanted our baby to have a blessing from the apostle. I was thrilled to think that these men knew of us and this child and were so willing to do this for our baby!
We met Elder Scott and Elder Zwick later that evening in the hospital. The hospital made special concessions for our families and the brethren into the NICU at once. Normally, only two visitors are allowed with the parents at a time. Plus, you must scrub in to be allowed in that area. Elder Scott and Todd administered to our sweet little baby. It was very special to be a part of that blessing and to be in the company of an apostle. What a sweet memory.
Everyday he got stronger and a little better. The hospital staff kept telling me that it was the “honeymoon” period and to expect setbacks. But really he never really had any setbacks. He was a little slow to get going sometimes. Our biggest problem with him was after they stopped feeding him through the IV, to get him to bottle feed or nurse without falling asleep. I was pumping and bringing my milk to the hospital every morning! I was determined to nurse this child! I would even use the pumping rooms at the hospital during the day so that I could keep my milk.
Friends and family would take turns driving me up to Salt Lake during the day so I could spend the day with my baby and Todd would come up in the evening after work and then drive me home at night. We would hold and bathe and feed him. Although we weren’t able to even hold him until he was 10 days old. Eventually, as he got stronger, we were able to really take care of him almost exclusively. The nurses would come in every three hours to take his vitals. But everything else I was able to do for him.
So as you can see this was the happiest and saddest time of my life! Time has truly faded my memory of these events. It seemed so scary and serious at the time, but now that we’ve had our Gabe with us for seven whole years, It seems like a distant memory. However, there were so many thoughts and realizations that I had during this time, that I wanted to write them down so as not to ever forget. Happy Seventh Birthday Gabey! I love you so much and I am so thankful that you are a part of our family! You truly have been a miracle in our lives!