1 Year Later

On the morning of September 27, 2016, Cillian wasn’t well. What we had thought was just a bought of the flu and a nasty cold quickly spiraled into something very serious. I called our doctor four times that morning, running symptoms and developments past them, and them giving me the best information that they could’ve offered over the phone. I was stuck at home with just Cillian, Seamus at childcare, and Ruairí at the corps; I couldn’t drive because of the ever-increasing pain from my pubic bone being slowly split apart by the weight of our unborn twins. 

He lay on my chest breathing quick and shallow and hard. He was so hot, flushed cheeks and sweaty curls on his forehead. We lay down on the floor together with some cool cloths to try and cool him down when he threw up so violently he convulsed. I called Ruairí panicked and crying to come home now or we would need an ambulance because I was scared for our baby. 

I didn’t take my eyes off of Cillian the whole way to the Urgent Care (where we were instructed to go as, “they will get you in sooner than an ER, where you’d have to wait in the waiting room).  He was colorless, breathing labored, eyes glassier than I knew possible.

We walked in and he threw up in the waste bin. They took the papers from me and brought us into a triage room, where a nurse got the pediatric doctor. She came in, listened to me for less than ten seconds and interrupted, barking to the nurse to call 911. I buckled onto Ruairí’s arm and burst into tears asking her, “What’s wrong?! Did I wait too long?! Will he be okay?!” She explained that his breathing was so far deteriorated that if his body were to give up, they didn’t have the equipment to “bring him back.” I can remember shaking and stroking Cillian’s head while he rested on Ruairí’s shoulder. I cried and prayed. “Jesus, be our strength.” “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

God brought us a gentle and caring and swift-acting team of firefighters, followed closely by paramedics. Cillian’s oxygen levels were plummeting. He was nowhere near stabilizing, and so into the ambulance climbed our poor Cillian and his poor heavily pregnant mama. Ruairí followed us through San Francisco to the hospital. The paramedic said as he administered oxygen and albuterol, “I’m glad we got there when we did. He’s not in a good place.”

Late that night, about 11:40PM, we were moved from the ER and into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Cillian had not made any improvements no matter the oxygen/albuterol/steroid cocktail he was given. Being true to the Mama Bear that I am, I insisted that I stay the night with him and Ruairí go home with Séamus (who he had gone to collect and bring back to the hospital earlier on).

I sat and held Cillian as he whimpered and growled and huffed and screamed. He was a mess. And I was a mess. My ‘holding’ of Cillian turned more into restraining the sick boy against my big belly because of how the steroids were affecting his tiny body, turning him into a hulk-baby.

The night shift PICU doctor decided to “see how he fared” with less treatment. She ordered a 20-minute break from the dosage he was breathing through his mask every hour. The first break came, and truly my baby boy almost died in my arms. Every machine in the room began beeping and flashing red lights, his eyes rolled back in his head, his lips blue, and his body that thrashed against me for hours just moments ago went as lifeless and limp as I’d never wanted to feel. Nurses flooded our room, darting here and there, laying across us, working to get him breathing with oxygen levels on the rise again. I have never sobbed to Jesus like I did in that moment. Thank you, Lord.

Morning came after a long night. We were made to try two more ‘breaks’ in dosages until finally the doctor decided he wasn’t ready for that yet. So they sent me down the hall to eat cold, sweaty pancakes while they fitted Cillian with a breathing tube through his nostrils to ready him for a continuous flow of special oxygen and albuterol together. Leaving his room, I can remember feeling my body wracked with physical pain. I had never before felt pain that so rivaled labor contractions, when I knew for certain that they weren’t contractions, but just plain pain. Yet as I rounded the corner to the room where my soggy pancakes wait and heard the screams of my baby (because who likes things shoved up your nose, right?!), my heart ached more than any part of my body. And I cried.

Ruairí took Séamus to childcare and came to the hospital. We held our boy, as he had settled a bit after having the breathing tube taped to his cheeks. Restless snuggles and playing with trucks while trying not to disturb the 10+ tubes and wires coming off of him wasn’t easy.

A friend of ours from across the bay came to our aid and hung out in the room with Cillian while Ruairí drove Séamus and I home for the night before returning to the hospital himself.

I cried and winced as Séamus and I went up the stairs to bed that night because my own pain had become so excruciating. We prayed for “brother and daddy and the doctors and nurses and for Séamus and mummy and the babies.” It felt good to hold my first baby, and to thank God for his life on the eve of his third birthday.

In the morning I laid out a birthday picnic in our living room for the sweet birthday boy. Pancakes (of the un-soggy variety) and berries were on the menu, as requested by our big three year old. He was so happy for this little moment carved into our day amidst the chaos that had filled his week thus far. And so was I! But then off to childcare for him and the hospital for me, thanks to the driving of one of our neighbors.

Another day of hospital happenings. Another day of Cillian not making many measureable improvements.

Ruairí went to pick up Séamus that night, but only after stopping to pick him up a bundle of red balloons. Red is Séamus’ very favorite color, if you didn’t know. They went for a treat and then headed up to see us at the hospital. Séamus walked in with a red Lightning McQueen balloon from his birthday-balloon-bundle and announced, “I think Cillian will like this,” trying to hand it to his little brother through the hospital crib bars. My caring, compassionate boy!

The next day saw a few improvements for Cillian and he was finally eligible to be on the regular floor, not the Pediatric ICU. The pulmonologist came and taught Ruairí and I about our new ‘action plan’ for any and every time that Cillian gets sick; the sniffles, a cold, a cough, etc. Not only that, but we learned that our boy would not be bound to a machine or need hourly treatments like in the hospital once we would be able to leave, but it would be daily, sometimes many times daily, and it would be for the foreseeable future for sure.

On the fifth night, our boy came home. Hallelujah! He had lost six pounds in those five days, and he looked so sad and sunken. But home.

I went to my team of Maternal Fetal Medicine specialists the next day, like every week of my pregnancy with the twins, and the babies were doing well. But they could tell that I was not. Down the hall at my OB’s office, she said that partial bedrest was in order, if I wanted to save myself from complete bedrest for the next three months. I already couldn’t drive because of the pain, so it seemed to me that that was enough of a step back. But I was mistaken. My health took a nosedive. My heart was palpitating in ways the doctors couldn’t understand (still can’t! Ha!), my lungs were heavy and short of breath unexpectedly and without reason, my pubic bone continued to rupture and tear apart under the weight of our precious growing babies, and I was tired thanks to the pregnancy-induced insomnia I suffered, to name a few of the big ones.

Cillian slowly recovered. We adapted to the action plan and now leap to listen to his lungs the moment a wheeze is heard. Séamus turned three. The babies kept growing. I didn’t have heart failure or pulmonary embolism like the doctors pointed towards. Ruairí held us all together. God remains faithful.

Do you know what keeps me up at night now, besides two baby boys named Pearse and Ronán? Thinking about the ‘what-ifs.’ I have wrestled them again and again. And the only conclusion that I can come to that brings my weary soul peace is this: even if things had gone more wrong than they did, God’s faithfulness would not have been in question. When I look to Him and fix my focus there, my soul is calm even though my heart still races and beats out of turn. When I trust that He is good in the chaos, I can entrust my babies to His care. This past year has shaken me. For SO MANY MORE reasons than I was able to get down on paper right now. I have been brought to the brink of myself. And still I found Jesus to be good. To be enough. To be the one to take my anger and doubt and cries and pain and guilt and embarrassment and lift my chin back up. Guys, He is the One! He is the real deal, and you don’t have to look anywhere else for what you need, I’m telling you. I’m telling me.