The story of Makenna
July 4th 1999, 9:10 pm beautiful 8 lb 15 oz baby girl Makenna Ray was born. She was showing all signs of being a perfect healthy little girl.
July 7 1999, We are home, and she isn’t acting quite right, her breathing is “weird”, she won’t eat and seems to just be sleeping. Her hands and feet are purple and cold, it is a hot day in July. It was after hours and after a couple frantic calls to my mom and Makenna’s dad about what I should do, I called her pediatrician at home. He was up flying but his wife called his cell phone and let him know what was going on. He called me within 5 min and told me he would meet me in the ER. Skipping ahead through the ER stuff, unbeknownst to me, her pediatrician called in a favor and had a neonatologist from anchorage come down on the medivac to asses Makenna. Just before we are about to load her on the ambulance to take her to the airport to medivac to anchorage, the neonatologist has us all in a room explaining the things that could be wrong with her, we wouldn’t know for sure until they got to Anchorage, the only thing I can remember from what he said was ” I don’t want you to do anything desperate however there is a good chance she isn’t going to make it to Anchorage.” WHAT?!! I knew she was sick, I could see it in her, the deathly gray color of her skin, the lack of response when the were poking her with multiple needles but I was still in shock. As they were loading Makenna onto the ambulance, the neonatologist took my dad aside and told him “She will NOT survive the altitude change on flight to anchorage.” my sister and brother in law got me to Kenai to catch a commercial flight to anchorage, ( her dad flew on the medivac with her) On the plane, I just kept praying and praying for God not to take her and crying and crying, the other passengers had to think I was crazy, my sister flew up with me and I thank God for her because I would have been lost and probably never made it without her because I couldn’t even think clearly. At that time we did not attend church and we really didn’t speak of God and praying in our home. I had gone to church as a child and knew about praying and did minimally throughout my adult life to this point. I got to anchorage to find my baby girl was there and alive, however, she was not good, test revealed congenital heart disease, she had 4 different things wrong and would have to have surgery soon! She was so sick that it took 2 weeks in Anchorage just to get her stable enough to be medivaced to Portland,OR. I kept saying and believing my God would not get us this far only to take her, if he was going to take her he would have done so on the medivac. I keep choosing to believe that she would be fine, there were NO other options.
We finally make it to Portland and she under goes her first closed heart surgery at 2 weeks old, her second closed heart at 3 weeks old. After a month of hospital stays we are finally able to go home. Now skip ahead to age 3….its time for Makenna to undergo her major open heart surgery that we had known all along was going to eventually happen. At first I just prayed…then I started praying for God’s will to be done, then it changed to God’s will being done and ACCEPTING whatever His will was for my little girl…..It was so difficult to turn it all over to God and say “here she is God, she is yours and I will accept what your plan is for her…No matter the outcome….I may not like it but I WILL accept it.” It reminds me of when God asked Abraham to offer his son up as a sacrifice. Anyway now We have a very serious choice to make….Do we go with the low mortality rate surgery that will definitely require more surgery or High mortality rate surgery that will mostly fix her and require minimal surgeries later? Our choice was to tell the Dr to do what he thought was best. The last thing the surgeon said to us as we were leaving his office was ” I will pray for God to guide my hands”
Her open heart surgery was a success….her heart is pretty much normal….the surgeon was able to find a 3rd alternative that we didn’t even know existed until he got her opened up. Praise God!
Around the time Kenna was 4ish, she started asking me all kinds of questions about Jesus and his mom and when we would get to meet His momma….I struggled trying to tell this precious child how it all worked in terms she could understand, only to have her come back with ” Mommy, I don’t want to see Jesus AGAIN, anytime soon.”…..WHAT?????????? I was instantly covered in goose bumps and wondered and have wondered since…Did my baby girl see Jesus during her last surgery?? My thoughts are, yes she did!
God definitely has a plan for Makenna….He is working in and through her everyday and her love for Him is strong.
Matthew 17:20
“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could day to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”
That really means a lot to me mom, I love you. It almost made me cry!!