As promised...

my collection of memories of a night that most of the time I don't dwell on or want to think of. On occasion, like this year, it tugs away at my heart and I know that I want, I need to write it. Writing is how I deal. It is how I cope. It is time for me to validate my own hurt and to let it go.

On February 19 Matt and I had played a game of Starcraft that landed us up and getting ready for bed around 1 a.m. As I do with all my children to this day, before I go to bed I sneak into their rooms and make sure all is well. I did that on this night. I went into Zach's room to check on him. He was sleeping soundly but something stirred in my gut. To Matt's dismay, I picked up Zach and determined he needed a new diaper. He was sleepy and not happy with me. As I changed his diaper, I noticed a bright red rash all over his body. He hadn't had a high fever, low grade, yes. It freaked me out. After some discussion, we packed up and headed to the hospital. Hospital A.

We got there, did some waiting. Had some discussion about how it seemed that he wasn't breathing quite right. They did an x-ray - during which he screamed the WHOLE time. After an evaluation it was determined that he was okay. We went home.

Now, I have to pause here. God had his hand on our lives during this time. I don't believe He took my child. I believe my child is in heaven with God. So I place no blame on Hospital A or Hospital B for how our weekend went. I DO struggle from time to time with my own guilt. I feel like a mother's job is to protect their child and I failed. BUT God is good to me and I know that the truth is that I am a good mother. I could have done more, yes - will explain later. Would it have mattered? Probably not.

Fast forward maybe 12 hours... it was a Sunday. Zach was struggling even more to breathe. He wouldn't take a bottle. Sometime during early evening we realized things weren't right, he wasn't getting better. Understand we believed doctors were the authority. And not that doctors aren't, but we didn't ever take into consideration that they are human. They work long shifts. They miss things. So we wrestled with another ER trip after being sent home the first time.

But as I got ready to give Zach a bath I experienced the truest definition of lethargic. Zach looked toward Matt after Matt called for him and his eyes were stale, blank and not focused. Neither one of us has forgotten that moment, that look in his eyes. The eyes that were so full of life just a day before... held nothing in that moment.

We went to Hospital A. Immediately they took him to a room. Something like 20 neubulizer treatments back to back to back and an IV in his head, Zach and I got on an ambulance for Hospital B. I fault neither place. Every hospital in Des Moines is equipped to handle emergencies and give great care.

Matt and I were so disillusioned about what was happening. Zach had polished a sippy full of green Gatorade after one of the neubulizer treatments. We thought that was a great sign. We thought we'd be going home.

I remember that the nurses and docs never left us alone but they let me continue to hold him. They arranged a transport via ambulance. I remember the sirens. Zach was strapped to the bed thing and I sat beside him. I still think we took some gravel road in DSM.... it felt like an underground tunnel from one hospital to the other. Matt assures me it was not. Zach's eye had perked up just a bit and I remember him scanning the inside of the ambulance searching for the sound.

We arrived at Hospital B. Matt hates needles and I kept encouraging him to take his time. I truthfully have no idea what he thought or how he was coping during the time he was driving or parking the car. I go with Zach to a room. We talk and they work fast and furiously. I experience what I think is one of the coolest machines ever... the one where they just stick it up the nose and suck all the gunk out. Why they won't do that for me when I get a sinus infection beats me!

And then the doctor starts talking to me. Am I okay in the room? Do I need to go sit? I truly thought this was a dramatic showing for a cold. Truly. And then a strange conversation... we are going to sedate him and put a tube in him to breath for him. His body is fighting and it is getting tired. We want to breath for him so he can use all of his strength to fight. Fight what? An infection, we don't know where or what yet. Are you okay with that? Yes.

That's it... this moment. This is the last time my son made eye contact with me. I held his arms in my hands as they put a tube down his throat. I watched him fight the whole process before I had to walk away. My baby was fighting!! Why did they tell me his body was tired? I didn't get it. I needed a moment.

And so they worked and we sat in "the room." Once you have experienced "the room" you know what it means. When it is your first trip there - it makes no sense. And they kept asking us if we wanted a Chaplin or for someone to call our pastor. We thought it was so weird.

Then we moved up to the 4th floor - the Pediatric ICU. They put us in a waiting room up there and continued to work. It felt like hours before I finally got tired of waiting and walked through the doors and down the hallway to find my son. He had all sorts of tubes and things hooked up to him. They knew he had Influenza A and complications - severe pneumonia in his left lung caused by a bacteria that was already in his blood. More testing.

At this point, Zach looked peaceful. The machine was breathing for him and people were always coming and going and working and discussing. Nothing seemed significant. We made some calls and told family we were in the hospital. I don't remember who, but I think my mom asked me for how long. I remember asking the doctor how long he thought we'd be there. We thought Zach would overcome and we'd go home. We believed that.

So I asked the doctor... do you think we will go home Monday or Tuesday? And another milestone moment. He put both arms on my shoulders, squared me up to him and looked directly into my eyes. He told me to call my family and tell them to leave the house immediately. He said that Zach's body was failing. His blood pressure barely existed and his heart was beating something like over 200 beats a minute. He wasn't going to make it but we would continue fighting like hell. They had just lost a 10 month old girl about 8 hours before I walked in with Zach and she had the exact same symptoms.

This was a reality check that I hadn't even considered. Not for a moment did I believe he wasn't going to overcome. I walked down the hallway, out the doors to the bathroom and I puked. I sat in that bathroom, on the floor until nothing was left in my body and Matt was knocking on the door. Deep breath. My son would not go this alone. I would be there.

Matt and I talked. We called our families. At some point his mom showed up and was in and out of the room with us and with Matt. Mostly I remember her being there for Matt. Remember he doesn't like needles and such so while they continued to draw blood and work on Zach it was overwhelming. He never came too close to the bed but was always in the room.

At some point my mom and dad arrived and were in the room with us. I fell apart when I saw them. I instantly became a baby who was losing my baby. And I went into the bathroom in Zach's room and sat on the floor and puke again. This time there was a knock on the door and in came the woman who drove the ambulance earlier in the night. She sat on the floor with me. Her shift was over and she had come back to find out how he was doing. I don't remember her name but I remember her love, her kindness. She wrapper her arm around me and I just sat on the cold floor and bawled.

After a few deep breaths I came out and resumed my posting next to Zach with his hands in mine. I was sitting there around holding his hands and I kept finding myself singing....

I can feel the presence of the Lord
and I'm gonna get my blessing right now

I can feel the presence of the Lord
and I'm gonna get my blessing right now

Pastor Ed at our church once taught that blessing in the bible didn't mean blessing like thing but rather a Word. To get a blessing from God was to get a Word from God.

As I sang that song in my head and softly to Zach I received my word. God granted me immediate peace in that moment. It didn't make any sense to me but I knew what I needed to do.

It was around 5ish when I took both hands of Zach's. I kissed his forehead and with my Word from God in my heart I told my son to go home to his daddy God. I promised him I would be okay. We would all be okay. That I was not disappointed in him and I would never be upset that he went with God.

A few minutes after I gave Zach permission to leave his body rapidly deteriorated. They brought the crash kit in and asked me to back up so they could try to shock his heart back into a normal rhythm. It didn't work. They gave it a good faith effort to do chest compressions to see if that would work. The whole time the doctors and nurses were good to me. They told me what they were doing and why. Around 5:45 they warned me that they were at the end of trying everything they could. They were going to remove the tube and I could hold him until it was over. He might breathe on his own for a bit, he might not. They unplugged him from the machine and I sat on his bed with him in my lap. His body didn't try... he was gone. His time of death was called at 6 a.m. In my arms, my son took his last breath.

Everyone cried. Doctors. Nurses. Our families. I do not recall there being a dry eye in the room. I remember Matt's family didn't linger with Zach's body but went downstairs to get something to eat and get a break. I remember lingering with his body until my family had had their time and then it was just me and Zach. This lifeless, semi-stiff body in my arms. Already he looked nothing like him. The color was gone. I know it is so morbid but to live it. So amazing to grasp the body and how quickly it shuts down and begins to decompose.

I became somewhat protective of his body. Yes, I would let them do an autopsy. Yes, I understood the infection was in his blood, no organs could have been saved. Please nurse, please don't leave his body. My baby can't be left alone.

And that's it. I walked out of the hospital without my child. He was gone.


**This is an emotional posting for me... so while I normally read and re-read and edit and then add my better thoughts. This posting will just be raw like this. Every time I read it I remember more and more detail and some are just boring details. I will continue to add back the layers of what transpired in the days after his physical death as future posting. Things about the funerals - in Des Moines and Hospers. The hard conversations Matt and I had about future kids.