Prayer for a Miracle
by Jack Strutner
It’s a Saturday morning, I’m finishing up rounds with the nurses in the newborn unit, when suddenly a nurse runs into the room, “I need a doctor at the resuscitation table now!” Not knowing the situation we are running to, I arrive at the table. A tiny baby, approximately 4 pounds, lies before me. He is blue and spread limp on the table while a nurse is attempting to breath for him with a bag mask. I ask the nurse what is going on and it turns out they have been trying to resuscitate the baby for over 10 minutes already.
It has been a while since I have been in charge of taking care of baby born this premature, this tiny, this sick. We change out the mask they are using and immediately we see the babies tiny chest begin to rise a little more. His body begins to become pink and his oxygen monitor starts to read that his blood oxygen level is beginning to rise. After several minutes the baby begins to move his arms and his oxygen saturations rise into a healthy range, but he is still not attempting to breath by himself. Yet, after a couple more minutes he takes his first breath. His cry is a welcome reassurance that is turning a corner. I take a deep breath. We transition the baby over to a nasal cannula which provides him supplemental oxygen and he is transferred to our newborn unit.
That night I went to bed content knowing that the baby had survived. When I had left him, he was doing quite well without any neurologic deficits. However, the next morning I receive a call by another physician asking me if I can come to the newborn unit urgently, the babies heart had stopped and they were doing CPR.
When I arrive, the doctor explains that the baby had been doing well earlier that morning, but suddenly his mother noticed he was blue. When the team checked on him his heart had stopped. They started CPR and were able to get his heart restarted within two minutes. However, now the baby’s oxygen saturation was 60% on the maximum oxygen support the hospital could supply. [For reference, a normal oxygen saturation is greater than 92%, so if the baby’s oxygen levels remained that low he would surely die at any moment].
As I look at the little baby, his skin is again a bluish-pinkish-purplish hue, and he is struggling to breath. In a last-resort effort, I remove the nasal cannula and put on a mask which allows me to breath for the baby. Surprisingly, before I even begin breathing for him, his oxygen saturation begins to climb. After several minutes of simply holding the mask in place, his oxygen saturation rises into the normal range! Despite the fact that this mask has no straps to attach it to the baby’s face, one of the nurses is quite resourceful and ties the mask to the baby’s face with several strips of gauze.
However, although the baby’s oxygen saturation is now normal, he is still breathing 80-100 times per minute. [For context, a normal infant breaths about 45 times per minute. This baby was breathing faster than one breath every second.] It is obvious he is struggling to breath as with every breath I can make out his entire tiny chest skeleton. He desperately needs to be intubated (which is having a tube put in through the mouth and down into the lungs) and be put on a ventilator. Unfortunately, our hospital does not have one, whereas in the US they are readily available.
So, I call the referral hospital in the closest major city and request a transfer, hoping to get the baby a ventilator. However, they refuse, saying they do not have any available space. I hang up the phone with a sick feeling. Then I walk back to the bedside to talk to the baby’s mother.
Alongside a nurse, I explain that there is nothing more we can do, that he is breathing too fast and that his frail, little body will likely not be able to keep up. She never looks at us, keeps her head down, staring into the abyss, and simply nods her head.
That night I pray, “Please God, spare his life. Please let him to live.”
When I wake up the next morning I put on my jacket and tell Regan I want to go check on the baby early. When I arrive I am surprised to find the baby alive! He is asleep, and still breathing around 80 breaths a minute. The nurses report he had quite an uneventful night, which is always a good thing in the medical realm. I thank God, and pray that He would see the baby through safety to discharge.
Although I’m not at the hospital full time, as I’m still in my intensive language learning period, I check in with the physician taking care of the baby each day to see how things are going. They report that the baby is doing better and his breathing is less labored. However, I’m hesitant to get my hopes up as it’s not uncommon for babies this premature to suddenly take a turn for the worse. I’m also aware of the fact that, as far as I know, no patient at our hospital whose heart has stopped and received CPR has ever made it to discharge.
Which makes me unbelievably grateful to tell you that despite the odds against him, this miracle of a child went home in his mother’s arms just several days ago, happy and healthy.
Our newborn unit sees a lot of sad situations, certainly more than it should. But through the darkness this baby’s life gives a glimmer of hope and cause for celebration. Life is incredibly fragile, and it is amazing to me that a few critical days, a few critical moments, can lead to death or life. It brings me such joy to think of all the things ahead of her: the pleasure she will bring her parents, the friends she will make, the experiences she will have over her lifetime.
Uprooting our family from our home and moving to a foreign country and culture isn’t an easy journey. There are times when the challenges seem so overwhelming I find myself asking “is it worth it?” Thankfully, the Bible is clear on this issue; hardships are to be expected, but the joy of being faithful to God is insurmountably wonderful. Despite all the hardships, despite all the sacrifice, if we moved only to ensure that this baby would make it home safely, the joy makes it all worth it.