Esther's journey

It all seems like such a blur. It all happened so fast and as therapeutic as it is to write down my feelings, I have no desire to think back to that day. To those events. Essie Mae wasn't acting normal. I picked her up and knew something was wrong. She wouldn't wake up. Her heart rate was too fast to count. Her lips were turning purple. The feeling of racing to the ER with Melody all came back to real that night. It was around 10pm. We were heading to a hospital 30 minutes away. Essie stopped breathing before we arrived and every ounce of my blood ran to my toes and that same piercing of the heart that I had gone through just 3 months earlier was back stabbing and all I could do was repeat the name of Jesus. Over and over and over. One of my interns started CPR and in that moment I watched God breath life back into her fragile lungs. But the hospital was out of oxygen. The only hope was to go to the city. An hour and a half from where we were. All in hopes that we would make it in time. I found the phone number for an ambulance and in the late dark hours of Sunday night we pulled over on the side of the highway and I jumped in the ambulance with my beautiful 3 week old baby girl. The night was long and emotional as I rushed into that ER door and demanded help for this precious baby. I was not about to buy another casket the size of my purse. I was not about to bury another baby. I couldn't. I refused. I didn't sleep that night. I sat by her side and watched her breathe. I watched as mom's and dad's of other ill children slept on pieces of cardboard and sheets all around the hospital driveway. I watched as rats ran between hiding places in hopes for someone's leftover food. I watched Essie's chest rise and lower. I held her close to my chest and watched the clock...but time seemed to stand still. She stayed in that hospital for 3 nights before being released. Bronchiolitis is what the nurse diagnosed her with. A lung disease that almost took her life. Ann Voskamp said "not one thing in your life is more important that figuring out how to live in the face of unspoken pain."  So I will spend the weeks and months after this learning how to breath again. How to trust the "One whose breath births galaxies into being births healing into the heart of the broken." I will learn that serving Jesus doesn't mean ease and comfort. But I know it's worth it. Every heartache, every pain, every fear...its worth it for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord. Esther Mae is home and healing. She is a beautiful 8.14 pound baby that has captured the hearts of everyone she has met. Essie is here for a reason. She has a purpose to fulfill on this earth. She is a miracle from the Miracle Maker.

Jesus took Melody home to Him but let me keep Esther. He is a good good God. "When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go- always for our good and always for His glory." Ann Voskamp