Miracles and Guardian Angels

On May 14, 2008 my husband drove our minivan through downtown Boise a little after 2 o'clock in the morning, blaring through red lights and stop signs at roughly 80 miles per hour. I was sitting in the passenger seat, trying to be calm but not succeeding. The baby was coming, and she was coming NOW. My water had broken at home just minutes before, and I was overwhelmed with the surges that rocked my body. I think I remember shouting over and over, "She's coming! She's coming!" About 15 minutes after my water broke I delivered Maren in a single push on a gurney in Labor and Delivery at the hospital. The nurses were in such a rush to make sure the baby and I were healthy that no one had checked the clock for actual time of birth. We decided 2:15 a.m. was close enough.

Yesterday afternoon, a little after 3 o'clock, my husband drove our minivan on the freeway, weaving through cars as fast as after-school traffic would permit. I was sitting in the back seat with Maren under the buckle with me on my lap, wiping the tears from her cheeks and begging her to keep her blue eyes open. We kept asking her questions to check her coherency, trying to piece together what had happened just minutes before we loaded her into the car.

Derek and I had been at home, sitting next to each other on the couch in the family room and updating his resume on the laptop. The children had just gotten out of school and had all gone upstairs to their rooms soon after coming home. A few minutes later I heard Maren crying. It sounded distant and strained, and I told Derek it sounded like the wind had been knocked out of her. I don't run to my kids over every scrape and boo boo, I usually let them come to me. But this time Maren's cries felt urgent. I jogged up the stairs and went to her bedroom, calling her name. Her cries still sounded distant, which was confusing. Shouldn't her voice have gotten clearer, louder as I ran to her? But a quick sweep of her room told me she was not there, and then I saw the open window. The open window with the bent screen dangling outside, like the last fall leaf clinging to a branch. I don't remember moving from the bedroom door to her window, but there I was, sticking my head out the open window, and there I saw my little girl, down on the cement patio, red-faced, gasping for breath, crying.

I screamed.

"DEREK!  She fell out the window!"

I ran.

Derek was quicker than me. He had sprung up off the couch, the laptop landing with a clunk on the floor. He was already at the sliding door before I made it to the bottom of the stairs. We ran to her and she was rolling onto her knees, trying to get up. Her legs were shaking. I registered that she was in shock. She was responding to us, trying to talk through her cries. Derek said we were taking her to the ER. I ran inside and slipped on my shoes.  "Alayna! Isaac! Stay home!" I shouted. Alayna and Isaac were fine to be left at home by themselves. I was grateful Kristen was already playing at a neighbor's house, so I didn't need to worry about her. Derek and I went to the garage, and Derek strapped me in the van with Maren on my lap.

"Don't move her neck," he said.

By the time we got to the ER, she had settled down quite a bit. One thing I admire about medical professionals is their ability to keep calm when everything around them is chaos. Derek and I were cool and collected when we took her in and got her admitted, but I'm sure panic was in our eyes. I'm grateful the staff didn't act the way I was feeling inside, or else I might not have held up. Everything went smoothly from there. They had me lay her down in a bed and the nurses did some preliminary exams. Maren looked scared and she didn't want to talk to anyone, but she could talk and she could move all her limbs. Derek and I were scared of injuries that we couldn't see. A doctor came and took a look at her himself. Everything was looking fine, but CT scans and x-rays were ordered, as I was anticipating. After those had been conducted we were back in her little room, and by now Maren seemed totally herself again. She got bored with the show on the television, and we started playing I-Spy with her. (Say, "I see something red," in an ER triage room--it'll take the others forever to guess what it is, because everything in there is red.)

She was getting really restless, but Derek and I made her stay on the bed until the doctor came. After the scans and x-rays, it was over an hour before we heard back from the doctor. We weren't worried anymore, but we were very tired and had to talk to each other to keep from dozing off in our chairs. The doctor came, announcing that everything checked out--no internal injuries from the fall. We were so happy, so relieved, so grateful. We speculated about our niece who had fallen off a picnic bench a few summers ago. She had shattered her elbow, which required surgery and pins to piece her joint back together. And here was our daughter, who fell from a 2nd story window, and all she had were a few bruises on her back side and a headache. Not even a bump on her head where she hit the cement.

The day before Maren's fall was Easter Sunday. We had been eating Easter dinner with Derek's family when we got the phone call that his grandmother has just passed away in Seattle. She had been the last living grandparent between Derek and me. And I don't know if it was her, or any of our other beloved grandparents who are already on the other side of the veil. But someone who loves us very much was with Maren yesterday afternoon when she fell out that window. I don't dare to write all the what ifs...it would be too much to bear if I dwelled on what could have happened, although I can tell you it's been festering in some small corner of my mind ever since I saw her down on the concrete below her window. But I do know that my daughter was protected by some divine intervention.

I rocked Maren on my lap last night after the other children had been put to bed. She was eating one of the cookies a thoughtful neighbor had brought by the house after hearing about her accident. Maren told me she really liked chocolate chip cookies. I agreed with her and I held her tighter. I asked her if she knew what a miracle was. She shook her head. I told her stories about Jesus from the Bible. He healed a blind man, He healed broken bodies, He raised the dead. Some things happen that we simply can't explain, although something special in our hearts tells us that God had a hand in it because He loves us. And I told my little girl that the fact I was holding her in my arms at home that night was nothing less than a miracle. We told her what could have happened when she was kneeling on her window sill with nothing more than a flimsy screen between her and gravity. And the fact that the worst of her injuries were just bruises and soreness she'll feel for the next few days baffles me. Humbles me.

It is beyond words to express my joy that she was protected from all the what ifs and could haves yesterday. As well as the outpouring of love from friends and neighbors who rushed to my family's aid when they heard about our crisis. I can't describe how blessed I feel right now, despite the other very real trials my family is coping with. The love our Father in Heaven and Savior have for me, have for each one of us, is incomprehensible. And I feel that love so keenly.

I think we'll have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast today.

Derek and Maren with their matching "bracelets"

Maren's 2nd story bedroom window and where she landed next to (and thankfully not on top of) the grill.