My Life Changing Experience

I was married at seventeen, we had our second child when I was twenty-four. When he was one month old, he stopped breathing and we didn’t know what to do, so we were passing him back and forth and he was starting to turn blue. It was the end of August and a warm evening. Beautiful outside actually. And here we were in a panic. We were suddenly outside, and a neighbor hollered to ask what was wrong and when I told her to call an ambulance and that our baby had quit breathing, she hollered back to run him to the hospital. We lived just one block from Lutheran Deaconess in Minneapolis. When I ran as fast as I could to get him to the hospital, he was breathing again, then when he went in with the doctor, he stopped again. He was taken by ambulance in a baby incubator to the General hospital downtown. They poked and prodded him all night. It was really scary as at one point in the night they asked my permission to give him a spinal tap. They said that could kill him and if it was what they would be checking for and if we didn’t have the spinal tap, and he did have that condition, then that would for sure kill him. I was at the hospital alone. Many of my family and my husband’s family lived up north. My husband was at home with our daughter.

Sometime the next day, we found out that they thought he had sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and could stop breathing anytime until he was about 2 ½ years old. He had a cousin that died from this. When he was close to two, we discovered he was allergic to smoke. This was a difficult time for everyone involved. I couldn’t sleep when he was sleeping. My husband would pass him to me quickly at times as he believed it was beginning to happen again. I had quit smoking when I was pregnant and did not restart after his birth. I never smoked marijuana again as I believed that was why we didn’t know what to do when he quit breathing. My husband did not quit smoking, although he didn’t ever smoke in the house again or with him in the room as the doctors had told me that there was a correlation with smoke and SIDS.

That night I spent in the hospital; I was doing what was called fox hole prayers. My father, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, and my brothers had all been in the service and I heard of that foxhole prayer when I was a young girl. When soldiers were fighting in the war and would be in a foxhole with no seeming way out, they would pray or in my case, I begged to keep my son alive. I said, “I will do anything!!” “Take me, not him” and other things like that. I prayed/begged/bargained all night and most of the next day. I had stopped praying for many years by this time in my life. When I was a girl in the fourth grade my favorite teacher was a nun and I prayed then, because of her. My dad died on my tenth birthday, and she was there to see me through that time. She would be praying the rosary all the time. I learned to do that, but by 24 too many other things had happened, and I let the rosary and the Catholic church go.

The doctor had asked if I wanted a machine that would notify us if our baby stopped breathing during the night. No. While we were still at the hospital any time it would go off, I would think for sure that was the end of my babies life. Each time it was from loose wires. I couldn’t do it, so mostly, I didn’t sleep when he slept. I favored diet pills and had been taking them since I was young. My mother took them with 2 pregnancies as the doctor said he didn’t want her gaining too much weight in her pregnancy. I learned you only had to be 5 pounds over the insurance chart for my height and sex and I could get diet pills too. At some point that changed and it became diverted pharmaceuticals or white cross for me. I didn’t take anything during my pregnancy with him as the year before I had attended a training that talked about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAS/FAE). It was new information in this country in about 1973. After that training I was told I could offer training with the materials we were given. I didn’t drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drink caffeine, or take any drugs, including diet pills when I was pregnant.

This experience changed my life. I grew up with alcoholism, married an alcoholic, became alcoholic myself and within two years, I had changed me to the point where I was working seriously on my codependency, then after two years I was no longer drinking or taking any drugs. My children were my priority, and because of that so was recovery. Today I can honestly say, because of my foxhole prayer, I got to be happy, joyous and free in my life. I didn’t know that is why I got recovery at first but I did soon enough and I’m so grateful for that prayer. This is recovery month and I am a woman in long term recovery and what that means to me is I have 41 years on September 26, 2021 without drugs or alcohol. My baby that stopped breathing is 43 years old, with an almost 2 year old and are planning another baby in the near future. He is a great partner, dad, son and brother to his brother and sister. Thank you God!!