Thank you to everyone who prayed for Beau and us. God heard all of you and he listened to every detail. This was the first time I’ve had the privilege of being in a situation where God answered EVERY single prayer on top of providing for things we hadn’t even asked for. He didn’t miss a SINGLE thing. It was so special to be taken care of by our heavenly Father is such an intimate way. If I wrote down every thing He answered this story would be four pages long.
Here is Beau’s story, a story of our great God.
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| I got the chance to hold him before they took him to NICU. |
During my 36th week of pregnancy I had my second visit to the OBGYN in the States. They did an anatomy scan ultrasound where they found that Beau’s heart was slightly enlarged on the right side. The doctor said it meant his heart was working harder than it should be and there were many possible reasons for the enlargement. She referred us to the Maternal Fetal Medicine department who specialize in high risk pregnancies.
We had our appointment with them the next week. That department did another ultrasound but didn’t find anything specifically wrong. That ultrasound tech mentioned that she sees enlarged right sides often and it doesn’t mean that something is necessarily wrong, but the doctor of that department wanted to be absolutely sure that nothing was wrong, so she made a phone call directly to the pediatric cardiologist and got us in that same day for an echocardiogram. We walked right over to the cardiology wing and got an echocardiogram done by a very skilled and very sweet tech who saw us during her lunch break. She said that it was a good thing we ended up there that day because she and the other girl who specialize in echoes were going to be on vacation for a week starting the next day. She also gave us snacks from her stash in the break room since we didn’t get lunch either J
As soon as the echo was finished, we went right upstairs to meet with the pediatric cardiologist. She started off by telling us that these were the best images she’d ever gotten this late in a pregnancy. That enabled her to see that Beau had transverse aortic arch hypoplasia with possible coarctation. In laymen’s terms, his entire aortic arch was noticeably narrower than the rest of his aorta with the possibility of it being pinched even tighter in some spots. She could also see that three arteries that branch off the top of the aorta weren’t located where they were supposed to be. Another indicator that something was wrong with his aorta. She told us that there was a 50/50 chance Beau would need open heart surgery right after he was born. And if not immediately, then it would only be a matter of time. She referred us to a hospital in Indianapolis as they weren’t able to perform that type of surgery locally.
We then made our way back to MFM department where the doctor walked us through what the next steps would be and contacted the hospital in Indianapolis for us. We thanked her for helping us get so much accomplished in one day. We went in at 9 a.m. and didn’t leave the hospital until 4:30 p.m. It’s not often all those tests happen in one day and it’s basically unheard of to get a diagnosis the same day. She said it was lucky that everything worked out the way it did. I said, “You call it luck, I call it God taking care of us.”
We decided to head up to Indianapolis the next week in case Beau came early. Had I delivered him locally and he needed surgery, they would have sent him up to Indianapolis and I would’ve been left behind. My heart couldn’t handle that option, so we rented an Airbnb (that God covered the cost of!) about 20 minutes away from the hospital. During our first appointment there we met with another pediatric cardiologist who did another ultrasound and informed us that he didn’t think coarctation (tight pinching) was a problem, but he couldn’t be sure until after Beau was born and his heart was functioning outside the womb in an oxygen environment. It lifted some of our stress to hear a more positive possibility instead of worst-case scenario. The high risk OBGYN we met with let me know that I could have a normal delivery, no c-section required. There wasn’t even any special monitoring needed during labor.
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| Hinley meeting Beau for the first time. |
We were blessed to have both my mother and Alex’s come to Indianapolis to help us. I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. Hinley had a lot of fun while mom and dad were away at appointments and while Beau was born. We even got to have our own little Thanksgiving celebration. For anyone whose wondering, Hinley is a great big sister J
The day finally arrived; I was induced on Monday, December 2 at 9a.m. Beau was born at 6:37pm. He was 6lbs. 10oz. and 20” long. I’ll spare you all the details of labor and delivery and simply say that God took care of all those details down to the smallest one. Everything went so well. The delivery part only took about 10 minutes and he came out crying. I got to hold him for a little while before they took him back to the NICU. He pinked up really fast and all his vitals looked great. Alex got to stay with him the whole time while I had to go back to recovery.
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| Blood pressure check in the NICU. |
They did an echocardiogram on him right away in the NICU and found NO narrowing or pinching! God healed him completely! We were all pretty emotional, and I can’t describe the rush of relief that floods in when news like that is delivered. The doctors wanted him to be monitored until Friday so his PDA would have time to close. Turns out that in the womb babies have an extra artery that runs from the pulmonary vein to the aorta, it’s called the PDA. After birth the PDA closes up and disappears. Beau’s heart was fine in the womb because God created babies with that PDA. Beau’s heart was fine outside the womb because God healed his aorta. We took shifts with Beau as we waited for the PDA to close. It was physically and emotionally exhausting. But God continued to answer prayer after prayer, even when I hadn’t considered asking Him for something. This struck me the most when Beau’s lactic acid rose to a higher than average level on Wednesday night. This made the doctor decide to push up the final echocardiogram to Thursday instead of Friday. I had just asked Alex earlier that day if it would be possible to ask the doctor to do the echo on Thursday, so we get out of NICU. God answered prayer I hadn’t even prayed for; He just knew my heart and beat me to it! That final echocardiogram showed that his PDA had closed, and everything was working exactly like it should, so we got to go home a day early. The three arteries that branch off the top of the aorta are still not in a row like they should be. Two of them branch off the aorta but the third branches off the second. It won’t affect him though. It’s just a reminder that his aorta was messed up, but God healed it. He doesn’t even need any follow appointments!
It was one of the hardest things I’ve gone through in my life, but God is so tender with his children in the midst of anxiety and stress, He gave me peace over and over every time I went to Him. I’ve always heard these kinds of miracles happening for other people, but somewhere in my heart I never thought God would really do that for me. Isn’t it amazing what God can do with faith the size of a mustard seed. He is such a good Father.
