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11 years ago, I was nineteen years old and 8 months pregnant with a little girl.

At 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant, something felt wrong. The previous day, I had been at the doctors with my concerns and was ensured it was just a part of the pregnancy. I had an easy pregnancy, on the physical side at least. I was walking my dog everyday, working and nesting while getting closer to the arrival of my daughter. The next morning that feeling I had heightened and was paired with being unable to eat and no fetal movement. My older sister being an OB nurse at the hospital came to my side, she had a gut feeling and something felt wrong for the both of us. So much of what happened next was a blur.

If you don’t believe in God, I pray you see him through this next part.

My family and I rushed to the hospital where it was shift change, meaning double nurses and staff, those set to leave and those set to arrive. I was placed on a monitor already riddled with all the first mom feelings. The monitor was beeping, but it was only picking up one full heartbeat, mine. There was a faint second heartbeat that was decreasing. All of sudden, I was surrounded by staff and told I was being rushed to an emergency c-section. My sister was able to scrub in and the last thing I remember was her holding a mask over me telling me just to breathe, it was going to be okay.

Absolutely nothing, felt okay.

My daughter was born. The moment she was placed in the world she was blue, unresponsive and wasn’t breathing. Covered in meconium with a heartbeat that was 60 and declining. She was given epinephrine to get her heart to come back. An ambilocal line was placed for fluids and any medication needed. She had meconium aspirated in the womb, she had suffocated. The nurse who was working with her began resuscitating her. Some time elapsed with no response. The OB doctor advised the nurse to stop, she said “no, I am not losing this baby”. As they called for the air ambulance team, they stated it was already on the way but for a different baby.

Then God aligned the stars.

The baby that the air ambulance team was initially called for was stable and they immediately intubated my daughter. On their way to the helicopter they stopped the isolette next to my bed where I could see her for a split second before they airlifted her to a greater hospital for care.

I was unable to leave with her post c-section but knew she wasn’t going alone. My father and sister went with her to the new hospital while my mother stayed with me. There, they pumped all of the meconium out of her lungs, where she stayed intubated and was cooled to try and protect her brain. 24 hours later I was discharged and next to her in the NICU. She wasn’t able to eat for her first few days of life but was supported by intravenous fluids. She was supplied with oxygen and later a feeding tube. One of the hardest things was no one was able to hold her as she was in a full isolette.

But she was alive.

The first moment I was able to be with her, I put my hand into the incubator and she lifted her foot to touch it. She knew I was there.

I have always been a little hesitant to share this all as it’s not just my story to share, but hers. I owe who I am and all I have learned to her and to God who aligned the stars that very day.