I Need Blue
I turned around to see a masked man pointing a gun at me. It was just the beginning of a series of events, including robbery and abduction, which changed my life forever. I Need Blue, hosted by Jen Lee, is a podcast series featuring lived-experiences from survivors of life events. I NEED BLUE creates space for survivors of trauma to feel they BELONG, are LOVED, UNDERSTOOD and EMPOWERED! I called 9-1-1 and they provided me with life-saving directions to help my customer who was having a medical emergency. Law enforcement rescued us and caught the robber. Our first-responders face unique traumas every day. I NEED BLUE provides space for them too!
I Need Blue
Nicole: Navigating Birth Trauma, Child Loss, and the Healing Power of Storytelling
Meet Nicole, a resilient mother who shares her harrowing birth trauma experience while giving birth in Germany only to discover she would be fighting for her son Owen’s survival.
Birth trauma is a deeply personal and often overlooked experience that can stem from medical complications, lack of support, or feeling powerless during childbirth. The emotional and physical impact can linger long after delivery, affecting mental health, relationships, and even future pregnancies. Healing from birth trauma requires compassionate care, safe spaces to share, and the recognition that every birth story deserves to be heard and validated.
Nicole and her husband boarded a military C-17 with their newborn son, Owen, for a high-risk medical transfer to the U.S. Just seven days postpartum, Nicole found herself on a freezing plane, pumping every three hours while surrounded by a full neonatal team ensuring Owen’s fragile survival. What followed was a relentless battle—two open-heart surgeries, life-threatening complications, and a harrowing stay in the ICU, where each day brought a new crisis, forcing Nicole to confront impossible choices and redefine hope in the face of unimaginable uncertainty.
Through raw storytelling, we reveal the power of advocacy, the need for safe spaces, and the healing that comes from being honestly heard.
Connect with Nicole:
Nicole provides Perinatal support, grief and loss, birth trauma, life coaching, and hosts women's retreats.
Website:
https://www.mothernurtureconsulting.com/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/motheringismedicine/
Email:
nicole@mothernurtureconsulting.com
Connect with Jen:
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ineedbluepodcast/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1q8SfA_hEXRJ4EaizlW8Q
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567221068683
Website:
https://ineedblue.net/
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-need-blue/id1567450935
Loved this episode? Leave a review and rating on Spotify or Apple Podasts.
Purchase my book or Audiobook: Why I Survived: How Sharing My Story Helped Me Heal from Dating Abuse, Armed Robbery, Abduction, and Other Forms of Trauma by Jennifer Lee
https://whyisurvived.com/
The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Char Good.
https://chargood.com/home
Everyone has a story. They just don't always have a place to share it. Welcome to I Need Blue, the podcast about to take you on an extraordinary journey where profound narratives come to life, one captivating episode at a time. I'm your host, jennifer Lee, and I founded this podcast because I know there is healing and sharing. Each story you will hear shared on this podcast is a testament to our collective strength, innate ability to transform in the incredible power of healing. Please remember you are never alone. Please visit and share my website with those seeking connection and inspiration wwwineedbluenet. Thank you, char Good, for composing and performing the introduction medley for I Need Blue. You can find information about Char on her website, wwwchargoodcom.
Speaker 1:Before starting today's episode, I must provide a trigger warning. I Need Blue features graphic themes, including, but not limited to, violence, abuse and murder, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it. Now let's get started with today's story. Nicole and I met by chance, or so it seemed sitting next to each other at a networking luncheon. Out of a room filled with 50 women, we ended up together. I don't believe in coincidences, as each woman shared her passion and business. Nicole believes that mothering is a universal healing energy. It's about nurturing yourself, others and the world with compassion, love and intention. We will dig deeper into this later.
Speaker 1:Towards the end of lunch, nicole leaned in and whispered I have an experience that your listeners might want to hear. And then she began to share. I listened intently, my heart heavy and I felt a tear in my eye. Her pain was raw and honest, yet she had resilience that couldn't be ignored. Her experience began in 2021, when, at 38 weeks pregnant, she received the news she wasn't prepared for what was once a normal pregnancy had become medically complex when it came time to deliver. Because of the complications, she was admitted to a German hospital instead of the US hospital on base. The birth trauma Nicole endured is nothing short of unimaginable. When her baby boy, owen, was born, a new set of challenges emerged. Nicole takes us through the emotional roller coaster moments filled with uncertainty, fear and loss. Yet one thing remained unwavering her profound love for her son. Today and every day, we honor Owen and his beautiful little spirit. Owner Owen and his beautiful little spirit, nicole, thank you for being my guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jen. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, you're so welcome. You know we had a little bit of conversation before we started today and you've shared why you share and how that affects you in trying to process everything you've been through. One of the things that you said to me was you are committed to talking about it. Otherwise, do you want to share what happens to you if you chose not to talk about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said the word, the commitment word has really been a big part of this. I'm committed to sharing my story because it really does help me every time that I'm able to share in a safe space. And there's a quote that I love. I don't know who to attribute it to, but it says shame dies when stories are told in safe places. In my process, my releasing of shame and guilt and just kind of the stuckness and the grip that my traumatic story and my experience, you know, has had on me actually just in these last few months, is that the commitment to live a full life in spite of what I've experienced, is really the well from which all of my work flows, which all of my choices about who I say yes to, who I say no to what and where you know I share my story. It all comes from this commitment to living a full life and helping others.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know. I heard you use the word safe space a few times there. How do you determine if you have found that safe space or that safe person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a great question. There are a few things that usually happen pretty quickly. Humans are actually fairly predictable when you're sharing something like. Humans are actually fairly predictable when you're sharing something like, hey, my baby died whether it's body language or someone offering well-intentioned platitudes, things like at least this, think about this trying to help you find silver linings.
Speaker 2:And while those are well-intentioned and, I trust, come from a place of love and comfort, it does not create a safe space to share, because what it tells someone who's in grief, for example, is, this person does not have the capacity to hear the unhearable, the unthinkable, the unspeakable, and that's really what those of us who've been through unspeakable traumas or losses or pain, that's what we need. We need a place where we can say the things that we otherwise can't say. So how I do it? Now I have a better radar, I guess, and when you and I met it was hey, do you want a story about traumatic birth and a baby who died? And you immediately said yes, let me hold that. So I knew pretty quickly this was a space where my story was welcome and was going to be held.
Speaker 1:So again, thank you. Well, thank you, you know. You just defined something that I do without realizing I did it. I allow people to share what, to others, can be a very uncomfortable conversation. There are topics on my podcast that people may not want to listen to. They're just, they're not ready or it's out of their realm of oh, I don't. I don't want to have to think about that, right, but the reality is, you've been through something, others have been through something, and you need a place to come and share it to your comfort level. So, absolutely, I will always hold space for you. Thank you, and anyone Y'all are my family. I will say that I love each and every one of you. So, yeah, so, thank you for being you and being here today. So if you're ready, let's go ahead and get started with your story.
Speaker 2:Thank you. When you experience this type of profound rupture in your life and it doesn't have to be the death of your child, but if anyone listening can relate to, like, okay, my life has now split. There's the before and there's the after, and I know the before happened. I remember the before, I know who she was, but it's sort of another lifetime, so in a way it feels like it's been my whole life, if that makes any sense. So I was living in Germany, which I should give a little background there.
Speaker 2:My husband is in the Air Force. We had been stationed overseas, we both have children from a previous marriage, and so this was a well thought out, laid out plan. There's not a lot of opportunities for work for spouses, and so the timing was perfect. Let's do the baby thing. And so I got pregnant very easily, which was exciting. I was 38 at the time that I got pregnant. I turned 39 during the pregnancy and everything was great. I was feeling great. It was just wonderful. You know, everything was going according to plan, passing all the tests. Everything was perfect. I was receiving care from our on-base military hospital, felt very comfortable with everyone, knew some of the providers there, knew some of the nurses knew what room I wanted to labor in. You know the whole thing A little aside, I also am a childbirth educator and a lactation consultant and so I was teaching classes there also. So I was pretty immersed in that space and so it was smooth sailing and I hoped and planned for it to continue to be Went.
Speaker 2:In between 36 and 38 weeks I had a checkup and they discovered there was something questionable about the baby's cardiac activity, cardiac development. Nothing had come up on our previous scan. So this was very strange and a little bit concerning, but everybody was pretty relaxed, to be honest, about it. I did have an interaction with an American doctor who really didn't have a lot of bedside manner. So I remember distinctly when she was telling me, yeah, there might be a problem. She kind of just went huh and then pushed a box of tissues across the desk at me and that was kind of the first clue that there's something going on. But it just doesn't hit you. The brain can only process so much and I think in that moment it was okay, there's a problem, we find a solution. It was very simple still in my mind.
Speaker 2:So the next day I went and saw a specialist happened to be at the German hospital where they had, you know, better equipment and a specialist you know that could take a closer look Again kind of felt like, yeah, there's something, we're going to want to do some testing. When the baby's born Certainly felt some concern, but again, just it hadn't really hit. And at this time I was 38 weeks thinking, oh, we've got two weeks, you know, we'll talk about this, we'll do some more tests, we'll make some plans. And within about 12 hours, about three in the morning, my water broke and it was time Planned to go into the hospital that I knew was kind of packing up, getting ready to go, and I was told you can't come here, you need to go to the German hospital, we need to get the baby out, we need to do the testing. We're very concerned. Hospital we need to get the baby out, we need to do the testing, we're very concerned.
Speaker 2:And this was the first moment that somebody was. You know what I now understand as being honest, that there was something a bit more wrong, and so, of course, my anxiety immediately shoots through the roof. I didn't know this other hospital. We get there. Everything that you can imagine is different.
Speaker 2:Then it was still pretty strict in Europe with COVID it was still very much a thing, and so, you know, everybody had a mask, I had to wear a mask. They did not allow my husband in. There was a lot of confusion, you know, with the language, which was very isolating, and just the personalities. You know, the cultural differences between what I was used to and what I was getting you know was a bit shocking. You know, essentially, the birth I was left alone. The way that they do it there is just very different, very backwards. Perhaps it was COVID related. There's no nurse support. I'm asking for a. Can I get a birth ball? Can I have anything? And the answer was no. Can I have anything? And the answer was no.
Speaker 2:I was sent to a room that was actually more of like a recovery room and the plan that I was told was you stay here and when you're ready to have the baby, walk down the hall and let us know, and then you know we'll help you have the baby. So it was very strange and scary and anybody listening you know who's given birth scary and anybody listening you know who's given birth you're kind of gives you like a little what it really was that backwards and that confusing. You know the anxiety is sort of compounding because I've been told you have to be here, you can't leave, your water has broken, so you know you've got to stay and you have to stay in this room and nobody's coming. We don't want to hear you complaining. I mean it felt like some sort of prison, far cry from what I had planned, which was this beautiful, healing, redemptive, birth, vbac.
Speaker 2:Here I am, locked in a room alone. Back here I am locked in a room alone. I, you know very much, just went into survival mode. I walked the halls, I took a selfie, I wanted proof. At one point I did start to feel that things were kind of moving. I was getting more uncomfortable and there were a few times I actually, like, went down the hall and said can you check me, can you, can my husband come yet? And the answer was always no, you're not far along enough. And you know, just very strange, again, very punitive. And at one point I did go down. I was feeling very uncomfortable and I asked could I just have something to kind of help me sleep? They said, sure, sure, we'll, we'll give you a little something and we'll put you in this other room, turn the lights off, let you sleep, and so that felt like progress. That felt like something was happening. So they put something in my IV, they send me to this other room, they flip off the lights. They say call us when you need us.
Speaker 2:Four hours later I was in unbearable pain. At the time I did not know four hours had passed. This is all looking back at timestamps and medical records. This is all looking back at timestamps and medical records, and so I pushed the call button. I do have a memory of doing that. At least Lights are on.
Speaker 2:Nurse comes in and I realized that at some point this line has come out of my arm, has completely ripped out of my arm, and I am soaked because whatever medication they had given me to try to help me sleep or maybe take the edge off, the pain had just been pouring out all over me and nobody had been in, nobody had checked on me, nobody, you know, had realized I'm not receiving this medication. It's all over me. So the lights go on. The nurse comes in. You know I go for my arm. I realize it's all over me. So the lights go on. The nurse comes in. You know I go for my arm. I realize it's out, I realize I'm soaked and instinctively I just stand up and start shedding clothing and as I stand I feel the most intense pressure and I say I gotta push. And they're looking at me like what they check me. They say, oh, my goodness, you're eight centimeters Now we need to go to another room. So they make me walk down a hallway to another room. I'm stopping in between contractions. I'm being told walk faster. It's just no tenderness, no support. So I get into this other room, which is so interesting.
Speaker 2:As I'm telling the story, I'm realizing like rooms, there were so many rooms that I was moved around. So I come into this other room and my memory of it is walking in and seeing about 10 people large room and it dawns on me that they have figured out who I am. And if you remember, you know, 24 hours earlier I had received the news that there might be something wrong. I thought we had two weeks. Doctors were going to talk to each other. So then when I was initially admitted, I'm realizing I don't think they knew who I was. I don't think they knew this is the American woman with the baby that's got the heart problem. Now I don't know if I would have been treated any differently. But it dawned on me in that moment that they figured out who I was Because when I first got there they had no records. They didn't know. You know they're asking me all these questions. I'm like get my stuff, you know it's. I've been seen at this other place, right. It was as if I had come in off the street and they just didn't know who I was. So there's all these specialists.
Speaker 2:That was a brief second of whoa, but the body sensations of you're having a baby completely took over. I remember climbing onto a table, instinctively getting onto my back which was is interesting because that's also not what I teach in my, in my birth classes and I just start pushing. I have no epidural and I'll tell you, pushing felt great. You know, when you're finally like able to follow that instinct, it was just like oh, thank God, within 15 minutes he's born. My husband was not there.
Speaker 2:Somewhere after the baby is out, they take him pretty immediately and my husband kind of appears next to me I was told that I called him, I don't really have a memory of that and the room starts spinning and then I've got a nurse holding my hand and staring at me, going look at me, look at me, look at me, just keep your. And I'm just like whoa, something is not right. There's lots of activity, you know, down there. There's lots of activity, you know down there. And I'm being told I'm being sewn up. I say, did I tear? No, no, we gave you an episiotomy, so I'm going. Okay, great Thanks, somewhere in here they do bring baby back to me for about two or three minutes. When they brought him back to me, I just told him please take a picture, just please take a picture. And so my husband snapped a few pictures and they take him again.
Speaker 2:The room is spinning. I'm like this, I don't feel so great. And they say, ok, we've got a lot of bleeding. They can't get the bleeding stopped and they start ripping off my jewelry. Telling my husband we've got to take her, you need surgery. Telling my husband we've got to take her, you need surgery. So I'm wheeled away. To be honest, I actually did not even know what kind of surgery I had until probably about six months ago when I finally had the courage to get my records and translate them. So they did a DNC to stop the bleeding and I woke up about four or five hours later I have no idea. You know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Where I am, my husband gets on the phone. They hand me a phone you know it's all kind of a blur and he says I'm with the baby, I'm with him, everything's okay, I'm with him. A few hours later I'm able to meet him for the first time it was later that evening and he's perfect, perfect. He is about six, six and a half pounds, full head of hair. He's beautiful. All his fingers and toes I mean just perfect. But he's got monitors, a line in his main artery and a little NG tube through his little tiny nose. But he's awake, he's a newborn, I mean, he's just literally everything.
Speaker 2:We spend some time with him and then they say okay, the cardiac team wants to meet with you and tell you what you got Kind of, what it felt like, like it's come on. Now it's time to find out what's going on. And so we went. This is when they start drawing diagrams on big boards and I got way more acquainted with the anatomy of the human heart. We learn that our little guy, who at that time we still hadn't named, we ended up naming him Owen. It means warrior. We thought that it was fitting.
Speaker 2:But we learned that Owen had two very critical congenital heart defects is called truncus arteriosus, where essentially the trunk of the aorta as it enters the heart didn't split off, as it was supposed to, into the left and the right.
Speaker 2:It was essentially a common trunk, and so what that meant is that outside the womb the oxygenated and the deoxygenated flood would mix, and we can't have that. The other thing was his aorta as it leaves the heart it's supposed to split into the ascending and the descending aorta, which carries the blood to the upper part of the body and the lower part of the body. Well, he had something called an interrupted aortic arch, so where that aorta arches and is supposed to connect and descend, he was missing a piece. Essentially, the bridge never got built, and so the blood that was oxygenated would not be able to get to the lower half of his body.
Speaker 2:The reason he was okay in the womb is because of a little duct, a little tiny duct that is open, that kind of bypasses this system, and what we learned was that that duct was going to be closing. That duct closes within the first two weeks of life, and so we were told these defects must be corrected with open heart surgery within the first two weeks, and in the meantime, we're keeping him on some medications that are going to keep this duct open and keep his blood flowing, and while we prep for surgery and make decisions, and then we began this week-long decision about what are we going to do and where are we going to go. And you know, for me the story is in multiple chapters, and so learning about what we were facing was sort of the beginning, I think, of chapter two. So it feels like a good time to pause and maybe catch my own breath and check in with myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the audience, you and I can see each other as we're recording right, and I can tell that you are literally visualizing the scene as though you are right there, and I was wondering how you're feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tend to feel the tension. You know that's a. Where do you feel it in your body? I feel a lot of it in my chest and my throat. When clearing my throat, my energy friends would say you know the throat chakra, the heart chakra you know, as I'm telling and I'm putting myself back there, I'm definitely feeling it in my throat.
Speaker 2:It feels like a tightening and I feel almost like a burning in my chest, which actually has some significance, which I'll come to later in the story, I'm sure. But yeah, I'm feeling it physically, honestly, more so than emotionally. But as I'm telling the story, you know I'm very aware that I'm not there. I've done a lot of work to not re-traumatize myself, you know, to not be so present that I am traumatized. Interestingly enough, you know, every year since this has happened has been a little bit different. So he was born on November 25th and I'm always anxious about that day leading up to it. This past November, my hardest day was actually the night of the 24th. I actually ended up having kind of a mini panic attack that night, which I have not had in a couple of years. I was at the grocery store and I just panicked and later, in kind of talking about it, talking with my husband and reflecting on it, I think it was a body memory. I think it was a somatic memory of what my body experienced three years ago Birth trauma.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and that's part of this story.
Speaker 2:When I first approached you it was hey, how about a story about a baby that died, you know, but the trauma of the birth is part of it and it's been an interesting part in my process because the worst thing someone can imagine is a child dying.
Speaker 2:And we know this because when women have very difficult or very traumatic births and the baby is healthy, what do we love to say to them? At least you have a healthy baby. I know that was bad, but the baby's healthy, right, because that's so much more important. And so when people find out my baby died and then I go, yeah, can I tell you about my birth trauma, it's like, wait, you're bothered by the birth. The birth upset you, but the baby died. That's so much worse. And so the grief and the trauma and the way that trauma still lives in my body from the birth has been. It has taken a bit longer to move that experience sort of to the forefront and be able to work on it and process it. So I appreciate again just the space to tell my story and to include that part.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it's something that, just with what I've been doing now for a few years, it's not something that's talked about, it's not, yeah, it's not. So thank you for bringing it to our attention and to the forefront, putting voice behind it. So thank you for that, absolutely.
Speaker 2:With this whole story. This whole experience has really given me a much, much deeper toolbox, if you will, to kind of be able to dig into and, I'm very proud to say, has made me a really safe space, because you can't scare me to hear those parts of your story, or you know, you don't have to preface it, you don't have to say this might sound awful, but you know, or I know I shouldn't think this, but it's like, hey, I have been as angry at the universe and my body and God and everyone around me as anyone can imagine. So you can say it here.
Speaker 1:I love that. Again, it kind of goes back to know that you're allowed to own your feelings, yeah, and that there are people there like yourself to support you to process it and work through it. Great, I love what you're doing to help women as well. It's amazing the paths we go down and where we end up, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:None of us ask for these things. Right, these are not the paths that we chose. But when you're given this, it's what are you going to do with it? And again, my commitment is to live a full life and use my story.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I know you have a part two. There are several parts to your story. Are you comfortable moving forward with?
Speaker 2:that, yeah, part two. You know we were in Germany. I'm at this German hospital. Once he was born he was in the NICU In Germany it's called the Kinderklinik near his child and the Kinderklinik was very far from where my room was and I immediately started pumping. I wanted him to have my milk. The nurse told me she did not have time to take the milk to the Kinderklin clinic and so I would walk the milk down every time and visit with him and then I'd go back and I'd pump and you know I'd come back. It was back and forth.
Speaker 2:When I kind of got back to my room and started getting settled, I was in a room with another woman who was during some parts of her stay rooming in with her baby and at other parts was taking her baby to the nursery. And this was absolutely unbearable because I didn't have my baby. And here she is changing her baby's diaper and feeding her baby and all this thing. So I immediately knew, within the first maybe hour of being back in that room, that I needed to advocate for myself. I asked for another room. I had to beg and plead. I quickly became, you know, what I felt like was kind of the problem child. It took a few hours, but I was able to get them to move me. I moved to another room. This was also a shared room but there was nobody else in it and so I got settled and my first night after he was born I had my own space, which was so important to me. I was pumping, you know, every two or three hours. I started writing letters to Owen in a journal.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, trying to eat, trying to take care of myself. You know I had hemorrhaged and had this DNC, so I had a lot of medical tension still on me, which was also very triggering and very traumatic for me, because when my first son was born, my C-section had a lot of complications and I was actually very, very ill and had to be re-hospitalized and ended up going into toxic shock because of an infection. And so every time they came and they said, oh, we need to ultrasound and you know I'm shaking, just like I have to be. Okay, my baby is going to need open heart surgery. You have to make me better. You know I'm a patient but I'm also, you know, trying to pump and take care of my baby and the next day the door opens and in walks a pregnant woman and her bags, and I fell apart just screaming you can't, no, no, nobody can be in here, I have to be by myself.
Speaker 2:Took a couple hours, you know, the poor woman is just looking at me. She's German, she understood a little bit of English and I said I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, it's not you. You know, my baby is sick. I need my own room. She's freaked out. She doesn't want to be in there with me. Anyway, you know I'm clearly a mess.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm begging for a, for a room, I'm begging to be moved. I said I'll pay anything. I'm sure my insurance will pay for it, but if it doesn't, I will pay anything. Please get me whoever you can get me that I need to talk to Hours, hours later. I mean, this one took a while.
Speaker 2:I was offered another room, but it was going to be on a whole different floor and it was going to be even farther from the kinder clinic. And I said you know what? That's fine, that's totally fine. I'm, you know, on the floor with all these pregnant women. Get me off of here, get me out of here. So I'm taken to this other floor, which is like two elevator rides and I'm given this new room, which was actually lovely. They had updated that ward recently, had a mini fridge, so I was able to pump and put the milk in the fridge and then take it down kind of like in bulk, which was actually really helpful, and I got to pump and go be with my baby, you know. So my husband is only allowed to come during visiting hours to see the baby, so I can meet my husband in the NICU. That's it. Otherwise, I'm completely alone. I had a friend who dropped off because the food was not great, who dropped off a cooler with snacks and things, and it took them hours to bring it up to me. It really was like being a prisoner.
Speaker 2:Also, during this time, we're really understanding the severity of what we're facing. We're really understanding what's ahead of us, and then we are told that all of this work is going on behind the scenes, with the Air Force and Owen was born on the 25th of November, which in 2021, that was Thanksgiving Day. The military, they're facilitating things for us and essentially we are told we have put together a mission. You are going to be getting on a plane. We have the entire team that's going to be accompanying you. We are flying you to Andrews Air Force Base in DC area. You're going to be admitted to Children's National Hospital in DC. There's a team ready for him and we're going to repair his heart and we're like, wait a minute. Suddenly this is just like so much bigger than us. So my husband is running around trying to do all these things we have to get the birth certificate and we're going to go to country and the social security card.
Speaker 2:Those six days were incredibly stressful. Kind of the final hour where we had to decide are we going to do this or the other option was. There was a cardiac surgeon at the hospital where we were who was willing to take the case, but he did not specialize in pediatrics. Although these types of repairs had been done before, there was no one who was the expert in this no one anywhere. This combination of heart defects is so incredibly rare. Essentially, yeah, we got down to the last hour.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting in my hospital room and being on the phone with kind of the liaison that was trying to coordinate everything and she said I got to know. I got to know if I'm putting you guys on this plane Made the best decision that we could Left our big kids in Germany with my mother-in-law. She flew over. Everyone said you know it's going to be very complicated, it's definitely very risky. It has to be done. There are no alternatives. But Owen is very healthy. Otherwise he's very healthy. He had no syndromes. He had no other defects of any of his organ systems. He was eating by mouth. You know he was doing a little bit of nursing, mostly bottle feeding.
Speaker 2:The prognosis was good, so was it about a week after he was born then that you all head to the United States we get loaded on a C-17, which is a giant plane that carries like tanks and things, and this giant plane had been outfitted essentially as a flying intensive care unit. There were other patients that were also traveling to the States for different procedures and things. He was by far the youngest and most popular patient on that plane. He's in his little isolette. We had the head neonatologist, we had three or four nurses, we had a respiratory therapist. I was seven days postpartum, sitting in a little jump seat on a freezing cold airplane and pumping every three hours.
Speaker 1:How long was the flight? 13 hours, 13 hours, okay. So then you land, and what happens next?
Speaker 2:We land, we are immediately taken by ambulance to Children's National. It's probably 11, 12 at night, east Coast time. We meet a team. They say we're going to get him settled. Take a couple of days, kind of get to know him, put the plan together. You'll meet everybody in the next couple of days. We'll set an official date for his surgery and we checked into a hotel. There was no room at the Ronald McDonald house, just took an Uber back and forth to the hospital every day Spent the entire day with him. We arrived in DC on a Friday and he ended up being scheduled for surgery on that Monday, and so December 7th was actually his due date and that was the day he had open heart surgery.
Speaker 1:I feel like that was quicker than you anticipated. It sounded like you had a little bit of time to meet everybody and whatnot, and then all of a sudden, a couple days later, they're like we're doing surgery.
Speaker 2:You know it's hi, I'm so-and-so. Do you have any questions? And I'm like, yes, I have all of the questions.
Speaker 1:So what was it like for surgery?
Speaker 2:So surgery took a number of hours. We were told after the surgery that it overall went well. He had an event during surgery, which is not a good thing, and then, I believe it was within about 24 hours, he had to have a repeat surgery because the little conduit that they put in to basically build that little bridge in his arch collapsed, which is one of the risks. All of the things you know. You're signing these consent forms. We're going to cut your baby's chest open. We're going to try to do this repair on a walnut-sized organ. That's incredibly difficult on a neonate. You know who's seven days old. Yes, there's all these different risks, but if we don't do it, he's going to die. We have no choice. But if we don't do it, he's going to die. We have no choice, zero choice. So, yeah, signing these forms, you know okay, okay, um, but essentially, all of the risks, all of the this could happen, but probably won't, because he's so great and perfect and healthy and you know all the things, all of those things happened and it was just every single day going in. It was a good night if nothing happened. He had to be on ECMO, which is a very intensive form of life support. Essentially it's a large bypass machine. This machine is so intense and so serious that it has its own nurse. Owen had a nurse and the machine had a nurse, could not leave the machine because essentially the machine was functioning as his heart and then also has the capacity to function as other organs and that, at multiple points in his life, did, because he started having system failure. So kidneys needed support, lungs needed support.
Speaker 2:We spent Christmas there. It was up and down, you know. There were things. We would go in and they'd say we had a rough night. He has a blood clot, clot in his arm. He lost circulation. His entire arm is purple. We're going to see if we can get things flowing again, otherwise we might have to amputate Next day. It's oh, his kidneys are not doing great, you know, might have to do dialysis. So one thing is like oh, we got this going again. Okay, now we have this, you know. And so as a parent, you're just trying to see what you can live with. You're coming to terms bit by bit. Sure, okay, he'll be missing a limb. Okay, he'll have one kidney. Okay, he'll need a machine. Okay, he'll be delayed, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, it has to be a balancing act between okay, we can handle this Right, but then also you're thinking about your little baby. How much can he handle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a day when I asked the dreaded question. My husband was sleeping on the couch in the back of the room and we had a nurse on staff that I trusted and I asked her I said have you ever seen a baby this sick? And she said yes, and I said I need you to tell me if he's going to be okay Because, again, up until this point, even as bad as it was, you know, we kept hearing it's going to get worse before better and everybody was still talking about the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the roller coaster, yeah.
Speaker 2:And she said there's a very real chance that he will not make it. And that was the first moment that I played with the idea of, oh my gosh, it was a day or two later we came in. They said he's had a stroke, you're worried about a brain event. So we'd had a brain event. So now neurology is involved and we're talking about what this means.
Speaker 2:And it was this moment of am I allowed to say I don't want my child to live like this. What does that look like? That we've got to get him off this machine. If he has a chance, he has to get off this machine that takes up the entire room. Like that is not compatible with any sort of life.
Speaker 2:It's a big process. It's not just pulling a needle out of an arm, you know, it's decannulation, which is essentially a surgical procedure. So we had to have a surgeon, and once they do it, they're not putting it back in and they step them down to a ventilator. And so we had to go through this whole process and it was looking okay. And then it wasn't, and it became very evident that even on a ventilator his lungs were failing. And so then it's the moment right, this is the I can't imagine moment of every parent when they go. How do you want to do this? I knew I wanted to hold him. I knew I didn't want any tubes coming out of his body and I knew I wanted him to wear this cute little sleeper that I had bought. And somehow they made it happen. And, yeah, we took him off and he died in my arms and the rest of my life started. That was New Year's Eve, so Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Eve forever 36 days.
Speaker 1:Even just hearing you say that, I'm like I think I need a moment. Yeah, it's a lot. So we just went through the holidays and you and I talked about what that's like for you Aside from the holidays. What does a normal day look like or feel like Aside from?
Speaker 2:the holidays. What does a normal day look like or feel like? Now it feels certainly much more bearable Deep grief, deep traumatic grief, trauma itself and then the grief that accompanies it. Is a process of integration and learning how to carry, and so initially all I wanted was for all of it to go away. I didn't want to feel any of it. It was very dark, it was very, very difficult. But I have great days, I have blah days and I have bad days, and we all have that. Mine are just kind of a little different. You know, I very much feel them in my body. A griefy day for me feels like I'm hungry but I can't eat. I have burning in my chest. That exists for me still. So when I have a day that's particularly griefy, as I call it, it's not necessarily that I wake up thinking about it and I'm so sad. It's my chest burns and I can't eat. How?
Speaker 1:is your husband? How is the family my husband?
Speaker 2:struggles. He has done an amazing job at tending to his mental health. He's very committed to doing the work. So I'm very blessed that I have a husband. That is not your typical male stereotype of just pushing it away. Our kids are teenagers, you know. So that has its own. You know they have their own process. They feel it in different ways.
Speaker 2:My husband and I, I will say we have not really found a way to do grief together yet and I think that's really important, just to share. You know, if anybody's listening that's experienced something like this, we really want to. We want to go on a couple's retreat. You know we've both done retreats, we've both done sort of these sort of separate things, but we have not felt ready to do it together. And there's nothing wrong with that, there's no shame in that, and I think for us it comes from it's painful for me to see him in pain and it's painful for him to see me in pain, and so we sort of trust we're each doing our work and we hold space for each other as needed. And we acknowledge, hey, I'm having a griefy day, I need this, yep, you got. And we acknowledge, hey, I'm having a griefy day, I need this, yep you got it, you know.
Speaker 1:You just used the word committed again, and we began this episode talking about your commitment to sharing, and then we ended talking also about your husband's commitment to his mental health and doing what he has to do, and that your processes are both different and that that's OK, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, both different, and that that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think as long as you are committed, whatever trauma or tragedy or pain that you've experienced, finding your commitment, because it's going to be with you, it doesn't go away. There's not a magical place called away where if we just don't think about it and we just think about the bright side and we're just grateful for what we have, then it won't hurt as much. It's part of your story and so committing to integrating it and continuing to live your life. People will say, well, it sounds like you just don't have a choice, like that's how you do it, right, you have no choice. I say, oh, I absolutely have a choice, and there was a time when I probably would have made a different choice if I hadn't had the support, you know, of my husband namely. But there were some dark days and so it is a choice to do something with it and to stay committed Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you for choosing to share your story with me, nicole. Thank you so much, jen. You're welcome. And this is Jen Lee with the I Need Blue podcast. I do want to share with you that, nicole, the Mother Nurture Consulting in Wellness. I will put the link in the show notes so all of our information will be easy to find. And again, to all the listeners, thank you for joining us today. You can learn anything and everything about I Need Blue on my website, wwwineedbluenet. And remember you are stronger than you think. Until next time.
