| Our Story |
Though people rarely ask, many are curious of Nathan’s death. Though it is by far the toughest story about our perfect little guy, it is a story about him and therefore I feel the need to share it if someone wants to know… The morning of November 13, 2008 began a little crazier than normal. The night before, I stayed up late to upload some photos online that I had been promising for friends for a while. I got about 2 hours of sleep before Nate woke up for his normal late night meal. Shortly after I fed him and got him back to bed, Brad got home from his late flight. I visited with him shortly before falling back to sleep. The next thing I knew, our dog was waking me up, and I had somehow missed my normal 5:30 wake-up call by two hours. Seeing as how I would normally be dropping Nathan off at daycare and headed to work by that time, I panicked. I quickly called the school to ask for someone to watch my class until I got there. Though Brad was home, I found it much quicker for me to go through the normal routine than to try and explain to him what to do. Nathan was still sleeping, so I got myself completely ready, prepared him a bottle for when he woke up, and then went in to wake him. I remember walking up to his crib in my stressed-out mood and stopping a few seconds to watch him sleep. He always had a cute little half-smile when he slept and I loved to watch him at peace. I quietly reached in to his crib and pulled him up to my shoulder saying “Good morning, little man.” He whimpered once as he rubbed his eyes on my shoulder, but was all smiles as I laid him down on his changing table. He laughed at me as I changed his clothes quicker than usual. It was almost as if he found my sudden stress comical. Soon we were headed out the door. Since I had woken Nate up to get him ready, it didn’t take him long to fall asleep once he got in to his car seat. When I got to his daycare, I took him in and set him down (still in his car seat) in the play room. While I talked to his sitter about our morning so far and the last time he ate, I found myself stalling like normal. I absolutely loved his sitter. Whenever I left in the morning, I knew he was in very good hands. It was leaving him period that was tough. Once I finally realized that I couldn’t delay any longer, I bent down and gave Nate a kiss. He startled a little and looked at me after the first kiss. I said, “Mommy loves you,” gave him one last kiss and headed on my way. That day at school was normal. I went through all of my morning classes looking forward to my last class of the day. This was my only 7th grade class and they were scheduled to take a test that day. I knew that meant I would have a quiet classroom and some much-needed time to get caught up on some grading. I was extremely pleased at how quiet they were that day. In fact, I jumped when my cell phone went off in my drawer towards the end of class. I apologized to my students testing as I fumbled for the key to unlock my drawer and turn the ringer off. As I picked up my phone, I noticed that it was his daycare calling. I instantly knew that I needed to answer it because the sitter would normally just text me if Nathan wasn’t feeling well or if she had a question for me. As soon as I open my phone, I missed the call. I quickly told my students that it was Nate’s daycare and I needed to call them back. As I hit the “send” button, my classroom phone rang. My heart started racing. I picked it up and the secretary said she was putting through an emergency call…it was my sitter. All I could hear was lots of people talking and a woman screaming. I began to plead for someone to tell me what was going on. Soon a man got on the phone. He said he was with the Bryan Fire Department and paramedics were transporting my son to the hospital because he wasn’t breathing. I told him I was on my way and dropped the phone. I quickly ran to the teacher next door to tell her I had to go to the hospital, Nate was not breathing, and someone needed to watch my students. I called both Brad and my mom as I sped out of the parking lot. I was the first one to get to the emergency room and a nurse led me to the back. As we were walking, I asked if they had got him to breathe yet. She simply said they were still working on him. I remember the look on her face when she looked at me and said that. There was no hope in her eyes. She knew it was not good that they were still working on him. The next few minutes were a whirlwind. I walked into a room with so many doctors and nurses in it that I could barely see Nathan lying on the bed. They were putting a breathing tube in him and giving him CPR. I remember looking at him and saying to myself that he looked like he was asleep. I kissed him and asked him to wake up. I said, “Mommy’s here now, Nate. It’s time to wake up so Mommy can see you.” Soon after, my mom showed up, followed by Brad. At this point I was in shock and was sitting on the floor by the chairs. Brad came and sat with me as we prayed together and my mom went to stand by Nate and sing for him (one of her favorite things to do with him). Nathan never took another breath. All too soon, the doctor came and told us they had been working on him for an hour and it was time to stop. At that point they unhooked all of the tubes from him, wrapped him in a blanket and let us hold him. He still looked asleep to me. He was a little pale, but still looked normal. I couldn’t believe that he was gone. Within minutes, I began to see the support that Brad and I had around us. It had only been a little over an hour since I had received the phone call and yet we had numerous friends and family waiting to comfort us in the emergency room. Our pastor was also there, and came in to help support us through questions that soon followed. Since Nathan had stopped breathing at daycare, there were detectives waiting to get some information and ask some questions. They had already talked to his sitter and knew the events leading up to the time she discovered he wasn’t breathing, but for some reason the detective thought we already knew and didn’t tell us. All he said was that they didn’t suspect foul play. I believe that God knew we couldn’t handle finding out exactly what happened. I even called to talk to the sitter that evening. When she was telling me the story about that day, it was the only time my cell reception was low and I heard something completely different. I thought Nathan had fallen asleep in his car seat, which made it very hard to understand how he stopped breathing. It was a week later when we found out that he had fallen asleep on his tummy. It was very difficult to hear, considering I knew that he was 18 times more likely to die of SIDS since he was a back sleeper that fell asleep on his tummy. It did help to know that his sitter didn’t put him to sleep on his tummy. He was having tummy time and ended up falling asleep. He normally hated tummy time and would scream once he had enough. This day was different. God allowed him to be comfortable in that position and fall asleep. Nathan passed away while dreaming and there will be a day that we will get to Heaven and join him in his dream. |