The Power of Prayer

On Tuesday night our premature baby developed an irregular heart beat and became very sick. I prayed with a passion I have never prayed with before. I told God that we all needed a miracle here and I believed he would give us one.

Dixie was in constant e-mail contact with a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner in the USA until after mid-night. Although she did everything she could to get Jonathon stable he was not doing well. All through the night, the Haitian nurses stimulated him to keep his heart rate up. By the morning, he was having Apnoeas and Bradycardia's (meaning that his heart rate was dropping and he would stop breathing for short periods.

Prayer requests were sent out to adoptive parents and GLA supporters all over the world but at 8:30, our tiny boy was exhausted. He stopped breathing and didn't start again.

For the next hour and a half, we used an ambu-bag to breath for him and gave drugs to stimulate his heart but at 10am, it had all but stopped beating. We stopped the resuscitation, feeling so incredibly despondent; God had taken another premature boy home on Christmas Day. I wanted this one.

The next prayer that went up was in desperation, and dare I say, anger. I knew God could heal Jonathon, I knew he had willed him to be born strong and healthy and I knew it was a miracle that our tiny boy had survived 2 weeks at home without any medial support and without being fed! So what was this?

And then, Dixie was there with a syringe in her hand. An asthma medication, she told me, that might stimulate the baby to breath. We started working on him again. No-one had any peace. No-one wanted to give up on Jonathon.

We got a heart beat. We gave the medicine. And seconds later, in the pause between the breaths I was giving, I saw the baby's chest rise. I stopped ventilating him. His chest rose and fell again and again. 'Ladies,' I almost whispered 'He's breathing himself.

And then he moved, and wonder of wonder, opened his eyes and looked at us. He put his hand over his eyes, settled into a regular heart rhythm and fell asleep.

Beyond recounting what happened, I am speechless. When I asked Mme Bernard if she thought God had given me my miracle, she beamed and told me, yes, she thought he had. And everyone agrees. Our God is good and he is faithful and he hears our prayers.