She will cry and cry, and neither we nor the doctors can determine what is wrong. Sometimes-frequently-Caroline becomes sad. She has frequent seizure-like tremors, eats through a tube in her stomach, receives a special diet supplemented by a variety of medications, and regularly sees an assortment of doctors. Her eyes and ears function, but it is unclear how much she can process of what she sees or hears. She cannot talk, and we are unsure of what she understands. Her loss of blood-the cause of which is still unknown-meant a lack of oxygen to her brain, which suffered severe damage.įifteen years later, Caroline is still stuck at about a three-month-old developmental level. She did not, however, fully recover as I had stated in the blessing. She has a healthy heart and strong lungs. In some ways the blessing I pronounced that day was fulfilled directly. Family members, friends, and ward members joined their faith with ours in earnest fasting and prayer. Over the next hours and days there were a lot of tests and questions, a lot of indefinite answers and tearful conversations. I felt the sudden fragmentation of our family-each of my girls now in someone else’s care and me driving alone through the rain. Then Caroline was whisked out the door to the waiting helicopter, Lizzy went home with my parents, Christine stayed at the hospital to recover, and I drove to Salt Lake City, chasing the helicopter.
#U tube thin lizzy full#
In the name of Jesus Christ and by His priesthood, I blessed her with a strong heart and lungs I blessed her with a full recovery. We slipped our hands beneath the plastic shield that covered my little girl and placed them on her tiny head with its dark, wispy hair. The baby-Caroline, we would call her-was placed on a gurney and prepped for a helicopter ride to Primary Children’s Medical Center. Yes, I was told, that is your baby-not breathing, faint heartbeat, lost a lot of blood. In a room behind glass windows, doctors painstakingly inserted an IV through the tiny umbilical cord. Lizzy and I retreated to the hallway where, in a few minutes, a cart sped by with a too-white, too-still, too-quiet baby on it. Emergency C-section, they said, and they rushed out the door with my wife. I sat in the corner, holding Lizzy on my lap, watching with a growing, helpless dread.
There were calls for doctors and hurried explanations. Wait-no, that was Christine’s heartbeat.Īnd then there was a sudden rush of nurses into the room. I remember the nurse’s face as she searched for the heartbeat, her smile fading, her eyes becoming serious. It would just take a second to find the heartbeat. We called for the cheerful nurse, who assured us that this happens-babies move or monitors slip. The reassuring, regular beep of the heart monitor stopped. With the monitor running, the nurse left the three of us-Christine, one-year-old Lizzy, and me-chatting pleasantly in the room.
I remember our cheerful nurse that morning, chatting away as she hooked Christine up to monitors and quickly found a heartbeat.
I thought she was overly cautious, but we went. She felt urgently that we needed to go to the hospital for a test. My wife, Christine, was concerned that she had not felt the baby move for a day or so. It was the due date for our second daughter, but there were still no signs of imminent delivery. Dark clouds filled the Provo sky on April 15, 2003.
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