On February 14th, I received a phone call from my daycare provider at 10:40 am. I remember I had just looked at the clock and was excited because it was lunch time in 20 minutes. When I saw her number on my phone, I figured someone was sick. When I answered, she was crying and hysterical. She told me my youngest son Declan had stopped breathing and that the police and paramedics were there. My first thought was that everything was going to be fine because the 'professionals' were there. My daycare provider continued to cry and I finally asked her if my son was alive. Instead of the yes I was expecting to hear, she told me I would have to talk to the police officer. I knew at that point this was bad. The police officer told me that they were performing CPR on Declan and that we needed to get to the hospital as soon as we could. My boss drove me to the hospital in St. Peter. I prayed the entire way for everything to be ok, but never in my heart thought he would die. I don't think I had fully understood the situation. When we arrived at the ER, the police were there to greet us and we were quickly escorted back to the room where they were working on Dex. I honestly believe there is no way you could ever prepare yourself to see your child undergoing CPR. He looked like a little doll, not like my baby that left in the morning. My first thought was 'this isn't real' but when I saw my precious little guy laying there, lifeless and looking a shade of blue, I knew it was real and I knew it wasn't good. I was able to sit right next to the table and hold Declan's hand. I spoke to him, encouraged him to fight for his life and told him how much he had to live for. I told him how Noah wanted to take him hunting and fishing and how Courtlynn wanted to play house with him. I even found myself telling him to "shhhh" even though he wasn't crying. I remember looking from Dex's face to the doctors face and trying to read his body language... trying to decide what he wasn't telling me. Dex was unable to breathe on his own and even though his heart had some activity, they didn't think it was strong enough to stop CPR. At noon, however, Declan's heart started beating on its own and kept getting stronger. I felt like we had hit a turning point. At that time, Declan, myself and several other air-medics flew to Children's hospital in Minneapolis. All total, Declan had CPR performed on him for two hours.
The rest of our story continues... Children's Hospital and The Morning After.
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