This post contains descriptions of a medical emergency, infant CPR, intubation, and traumatic hospital events. Please read with care if these topics may be hard for you. 💛
When my daughter was 14 months old, she suffered a severe, complex seizure that nearly took her life. She was life-flighted, intubated, and placed in the PICU — and I found myself standing in the darkest valley I’ve ever known.
Her seizure started during her nap. I remember looking at the monitor and she looked like she was sleeping — peaceful, still. When I went in to wake her up, I found her seizing and barely clinging to life. I had to perform CPR on my own baby girl until the paramedics arrived. I still remember the paramedic leaning over her, saying, “Come on. Hey there. Stay with me.” over and over, willing her to hang on.
In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, they had to drill into her leg to try to place an IV. Even now, just the memory of that makes my whole body tense. She was so tiny — my strong, wild girl — and here she was, fighting for every breath.
When they told me they needed to intubate her, a nurse looked me in the eyes and said, “No mama wants to see this. You should step out.” I melted right into that nurse like my body had given out. My baby’s breath was but a whisper, almost nonexistent, but her little body kept jerking with seizures that wouldn’t stop. I was five weeks postpartum with another baby at home. In shock. Panicked. Disbelieving.
When they finally stabilized her enough to be life-flighted, they wouldn’t let us ride with her. They told me to say goodbye — just in case. So I did. On a gurney in a hallway, I kissed my baby and tried to wake up from what felt like a nightmare. I wish I could tell you what I said, but all I remember is telling her she was our strong Babe. Our wild one. The baby who crawled at six months and skipped straight to running at ten. I told her I was so very proud of her strength, and I begged her to fight.
I remember driving to the hospital she was being flown to, phone clutched tight, terrified it would ring to tell me she was gone. I searched the skies the whole way, trying to spot the aircraft carrying my baby and every desperate prayer I had left.
When I got there, I sat beside her in the PICU while a machine breathed for her. The room was cold and quiet except for the mechanical sighs and clicks. I can still hear every noise that ventilator made. They suspected meningitis and needed to do a spinal tap — but we weren’t allowed to stay. So we sat in a little side room with a sad Keurig machine for what felt like hours. Parents drifted in and out, but no one spoke — we just exchanged that same hollow glance. Words weren’t possible.
It was in that cold room, listening to a machine breathe for my baby, that I broke. I felt every emotion: disbelief, panic, anger, guilt. So much guilt. I remember calling my grandmother once she was stable enough and sobbing, “I should have gone in sooner.” Over and over, I said it. Over and over, I thought it. I felt I’d failed her — that my motherly intuition should have told me something was wrong, even though she just looked like she was napping. It’s taken me almost three years to truly accept that we as mothers can’t know everything like some superhero. I did go in — thank God I did — and I believe He sent me in there exactly when I was supposed to. I’ve had to decide that is enough. We hold ourselves to impossible standards sometimes, when really, it’s proof we have to rely on the One who can do all things — and give ourselves the grace that we cannot. That’s a blog post in itself – for another time.
In that little room, I remember sinking my nails into the mud between me and God and whispering, “Lord, I trust You. If Your plan is to take her home to You, to relieve her of pain and suffering, then even so, I will still say You are good. Even if you don’t, my hope is You alone.”
It’s a spiritual depth you reach when devastation strips away every ounce of your own strength — when you realize you have no control except to cling to the One who does.
Praise God, the miracle did come — not like parted skies or lightning bolts, but in small, steady mercies. They finally got the seizures to stop. She began to breathe on her own. She didn’t have meningitis. Her brain scans showed slowing, and no one could say what that would mean for her — but she was still here.
When they woke her, the difficult aftermath began. She was inconsolable, half-sedated, and in pain — but she was alive. I remember my arms felt like they might fall off and my back might break in half from carrying her, rocking her, standing for 20+ hours straight. But I’d never been so grateful for my own discomfort. It meant she had breath in her lungs. The only thing that soothed her was being walked around while I sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over and over again. I love Christmas — but that song now haunts me.
When they moved us to the main floor, I spent the night sleeping on a cold, dirty hospital floor that smelled like a school cafeteria – not a nice one. At some point, a nurse stepped on me in the dark. I broke. I cried. She asked, “Aw, why are you crying?” and I didn’t even have words — I had just been to hell and back.
No one could promise us then if she’d walk or talk the same, if this would ever happen again. The fear and trauma didn’t end there — that’s a story for another day. But God did perform a miracle. He met me in the valley. And it’s true what they say: we see God on the mountaintop, but we truly get to know Him in the valleys. We see His light in our darkest moments.
Praise the Lord for every first responder and medical professional who fought for her life that day. Praise the Lord for the breath in her lungs. Praise the Lord that even when the miracle didn’t look like lightning, it looked like life — and that was far more than enough.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” — Psalm 23:4
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