JACOB’S STORY - continued

We arrived at the hospital before the ambulance did. I asked the attendant for information, but all she could tell me was that the ambulance was still in transit and they would let me know when it arrived. It seemed like an eternity before I saw the ambulance pull in, and the paramedics taking Jacob in through the emergency doors. A tall, dark-haired woman appeared through a little door beside the front desk and called “Mrs. Williams.” Ladd still had not arrived, so I proceeded toward her. As I neared her, I smiled and said “At least tell me he’s alive!” I was expecting her to smile back and say something like “Yes, Mrs. Williams. He’s had a bad afternoon, but he’s going to be okay.” Instead, she said nothing as her gaze shifted from me to the floor.

It felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe and I felt my knees start to give way beneath me. The woman grabbed my arm to steady me and said “he’s not gone yet, but he’s in critical condition.” She led me to a little room with a sign on the door that said “Family Counseling.” Ladd arrived a few seconds later and sat down beside me as two women began to explain what had happened. The babysitter had found him not breathing…a police officer had arrived within three minutes of the 911 call and began administering CPR until the paramedics arrived…they worked on him for a while before transporting him here…all had been unsuccessful at resuscitating him thus far…he had less than 1% chance of surviving.

The doctors and nurses were still working on him, and she asked if we wanted to be with him. She explained that he was hooked up to all kinds of things and would not look like himself.  We entered the room where they were working on him, and I instinctively sat down beside Jacob and started talking to him. “Mommy’s here baby. Wake up and look at me! Daddy’s here, too. Where’s Petie?” Petie was Jacob’s dog, our seven-year-old shih-tzu. Since he was six months old, I could say “Where’s Petie,” and Jacob would stop whatever he was doing and look around for his dog. It didn’t matter where we were – home, the park or the grocery store. 

I started to cry, but one of the nurses looked at me and said “keep talking to him, honey!” As I looked back and forth between the heart monitor and the doctors performing CPR, I began to talk silently to God. “Okay Lord, I know you can do this! Bring my baby back to us. Let all these people see what you can do, perform a miracle for us here today! I know you can do it! Think of all the lives it would touch – a baby boy, found without a pulse suddenly wakes up after almost two hours of CPR procedures. The doctors were about to give up on him when he suddenly opened his eyes and reached for his mommy!”

Sadly, that’s not the way things worked out. A few moments later, one of the doctors knelt down beside us and explained what had happened again. They had been working on him for almost two hours by then and had never been able to get a pulse or even one electrical impulse from his brain. It was time to stop. It was time to let him go. They let me hold him for a while, but he was so heavy, so I laid my head down beside him and stroked his soft brown hair. 

We stayed with Jacob until the medical examiner arrived to ask us a series of questions about his overall health to assist them with the autopsy. We left the hospital and drove home to our quiet, empty house. I remember being completely overwhelmed walking in the front door – there were reminders of Jacob everywhere - his highchair where he had eaten breakfast that morning, empty baby dishes in the sink, his walker still in the hallway where we had left it and toys scattered all over the place. We came in, shoved everything into his room and shut the door. It was all too much to handle.

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