Mac Alfred Davidson was born on May 14, 2021. He is our 3rd child and was a normal pregnancy. The ultrasound showed everything normal and that we’d be welcoming a boy for the tiebreaker. 

When he arrived as a home birth, he was placed on my chest by my midwife and every God- given motherly instinct told me he needed help. His mouth was opening but he wasn’t crying. I looked at my midwife and she took him, he coded on our bathroom floor, which in medical terms meant he wasn’t breathing, and therefore his heart stopped. We watched as our two midwives and nurse took out all emergency resuscitation gear; they were well equipped for moments like this physically, but also mentally and spiritually. 

Just a month before Mac’s birth, the whole team had NRP (neonatal resuscitation program) training. We witnessed them speak life and God’s word over Mac as we began to proclaim the same. My sister-in-law Nicki called 911, and my mother, Roxane, drove swiftly to the gate to wave emergency responders onto our country road. 

Mac was revived after a few minutes, and our midwife Lauren convinced EMS drivers (Covid regulations) to ride alongside Mac on the ambulance to Maury Regional. She said the only pink part of him was his lips under the oxygen mask. 

Andy, my husband and Mac’s dad, road with a police officer who graciously offered him a ride behind the ambulance. 

I was given IV fluids and a swift breakfast despite not wanting to eat, and then I received a FaceTime call from Andy showing me Mac hooked up to cords and stretching, moving his arms and legs and making noises as Andy told him how much we all loved him. What a relief. 

But we were very naive to this new world, and we quickly learned oxygen deprivation can cause carbon dioxide levels to rise, lung collapse, and brain injury. 

My mom, the kids, and Nicki followed us to Maury Regional. My midwife met me in the lobby with a wheelchair. As we rode the elevator up, I asked her how long she thought his recovery would be (I learned after this to never ask this question—one only God knows) and she responded with a face I had never seen from her. She said she didn’t know, and in all her time in hospital and home birth she had never experienced this type of birth.

The situation had changed. Mac was trying to recover, but his body needed help. They had intubated him to keep him breathing and needed to transfer him to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital as soon as possible, noting “an unstable transfer,” meaning it was risky with his current status. 

God had also prepared our trip to Maury Regional: a NICU angel ambulance from Vanderbilt was at Maury that day already and every other Friday Dr. Ryan Skeens, a NICU Attending, had service at Maury Regional. Luckily, she was scheduled that day, May 14. Without her expertise and instruction, God only knows where we would’ve been without this believer and angel on our path.

We followed behind the ambulance. I was between Evelyn, Eddie and Andy, with my mom in the passenger seat. They said they would call if anything changed with Mac’s status. I tried not to think about my phone ringing, still in a bit of pain from childbirth and with a migraine from the day. We got the call coming into the hospital that he made it. What a relief.

We entered the hospital NICU met with a wheelchair and rules. Put a mask on, no children or visitors allowed, paperwork, and all while waiting at the front desk asking us: do you authorize us to do a blood transfusion? All protocol for reason, but it was jarring. What world did we just enter that felt like a nightmare?

Because I had worked at Vanderbilt Children’s and my former boss Rhonda had made a call, the kids were allowed to stay with us for just this moment. We were then whisked to a waiting room past our son’s room first to talk. We sat there for what felt like forever. Evelyn and Eddie played around the room while my head and uterus pounded, and Andy and my mom held my hand. 

Finally, two doctors entered – an attending physician and a resident. The resident, a polished young woman, started telling us the not-so-hopeful outlook, including that Mac could be in a vegetative state and he could have certain presumed disorders. The attending thought it was a disorder, which meant he wouldn’t have gross motor function.

Andy, my mom and I listened on, but spiritually we held on to every hope – it was felt in that room. I kept hearing: don’t lose hope, keep the faith. They had him on the highest-level acuity, an oscillator to shake his lungs open, and a cooling mat to cool his body down to a restorative state to heal his brain. 

Dr. Agthe, the German attending at the end of this conversation, turned his appearance to a hopeful but determined one, putting his science-face aside for a moment, and said, “These two children in here, they are your son’s hope, the brain is plastic and with them around he will always try to achieve and keep up with them. And your farm, well kids thrive on taking care of something, and being in nature.”

We were brought by Mac’s room. He was the highest acuity patient at that time. Andy and I were allowed to see him while my mom and the kids were entertained by nurses and coloring books in the hall. The nurses’ faces were shocked because looking back on it, no child had been on that NICU since pre-Covid. 

We held Mac’s hands, said a prayer, and told him all the things we would do with him someday and that he was going to make it. That God would save him and did save him.

I turned to Psalm 18 somewhere in that first 48 hours. 

 The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

5 The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.

6 In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.

8 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.

10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him— the dark rain clouds of the sky.

12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

13 The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.

14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them.

15 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, LORD, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

I realized the comfort in this group. God had truly reached down and rescued him. 

Two days later, he was on the cooling mat and while I was holding his hand, he opened one eye and looked at me and wouldn’t stop – I could see the connection. I called to my husband excitedly that he’s going to be ok – we had faith but now I see. I met with our kidney doctor who told me he had kidney injury from birth, that we would monitor it, and just have hope.  It was stable the next day. They did a brain scan and confirmed his brain was functioning surprisingly well. The nurses let me dip a swab into breast milk and wipe the inside of his mouth with it. Each day I woke up with excitement only the spirit could provide.

The NICU journey was 7.5 weeks. A lot of turns and valleys and shadows of death lurking. Mistakes and valuable lessons learned by all. We had a lot of hurt, a lot of medical trauma, and a lot of sleepless nights after mistakes. I wouldn’t leave the room on nights no longer. God later healed all this and taught us the ultimate forgiveness. We are all human, and humans err, including ourselves. Forgiveness is the only way to true life and healing in even the most deprave of situations.

Mac, after six days on the oscillator and ventilator, was taken off and I was able to hold him for the first time. One of the best moments of my life. That afternoon, a student came in to do a repeat heart echo on him after his heart had looked clear. Five cardiologists entered the room 5 minutes after she left, who found a heart defect called ALCAPA, requiring open heart surgery. It felt like a blow we couldn’t handle on our own. We wanted so badly to take our baby home now – instead it was heart surgery.

Unfortunately, he was left unattended by a nurse that night and his tube feeds were left too high and he aspirated, coded again, and his lungs collapsed. I was awakened to the call at 3 AM. Andy and I both felt we should not have ever left that night. He had just left at 1AM. We were both so tired and honestly maybe I was running out of hope. Lessons we both learned. Mac’s x-ray was worse than when we had brought him into the hospital. His lungs were completely clouded. And we started the journey for the second time exactly one week after the first, on the oscillator.

It was an even more painful week; words were said by medical staff that were only from one mouth: the deceiver himself. 

Days passed like years. My heart ached for my Evelyn and Eddie. We’d try to meet in the garden outside the hospital only to be found out and the garden shut down. We were told we could meet at a park nearby. All while I was bleeding immensely. It all just felt too brutal to stand. 

We made it to the ventilator 7 days later, and I had learned settings and goals by then from friendly respiratory therapists and nurses. His lungs were healing but his heart was needing support. They called while I was napping at a nearby Airbnb. The kids stayed with either my mom or my husband while we rotated watchful shifts at the hospital. It was Memorial Day weekend. My mom was at the hospital with jarring news – they needed to do the heart surgery now in 2 days. I talked with the cardiologist while hearing children splashing and playing in the pool below the Airbnb. It all felt surreal – my stomach flipped in pain.

Andy had yet to hold Mac with his ventilation status. 

Mac went into open-heart surgery, and we prayed over his isolate and he looked up at us and shook his rattle. The spirit of God comforting us in that eye. 

During this time, my parents became the children’s second parents; Eddie was only a toddler himself at 2 years old, and Evelyn 4. We, as well as them, were always grateful for this time. They got to spend time with our children, and that continued on very much so for the next four years.

Mac made it through the long heart surgery. The surgeon and the entire PCICU team were next level. They were kind, compassionate and all the things we needed during that time. We were welcomed into his room that looked more like a spaceship than a hospital room. Towers of IV poles and lines, drains pooling blood into rectangle see-through chambers by his bed, and lights to see our little 8 lb 6 oz baby’s arms out, chest splayed open, heart thumping under a piece of translucent material. They decided not to close his chest, but instead give time for swelling to go down, and then close his chest bedside 24 hours later. He was on the ventilator, coming off tired of pain management. I got to hold him again. His eyes were loopy but trying to focus on me. It was cute and made me laugh, but I prayed it wasn’t permanent. On our anniversary, Mac had come off the ventilator and dad got to hold him 4 weeks after he was born for the first time. 

From a heart standpoint Mac was good, so back to the NICU Mac was to go for weaning respiratory and starting back up breast milk tube feeds. I still remember the night we were transferred back – the nurse looked at me bewildered. I then quickly realized from other nurses that this was not protocol, but an overcrowding in the PCICU from RSV. 

And back to nightly advocation I went. The days were hard coming off of pain medications – he’d writhe and throw his body all day. The only comfort he found was in my arms and dropping copaiba oil on his spine. There were sweet nurses who we became friends with and prayed we’d have back on shift. These nurses knew his acuity and had worked with it before. They would tell me to go get rest in the sleep room and I would then because there was trust – there are nurses that treat you and your child as their own and these nurses are true gold. One lead nurse, named Holly, noticed Mac’s stress not being able to be near me, took out the isolate, and rolled in an adult-sized crib (she had a six-month-old at home). She said, “you get up in that crib with that baby so he and you can heal. And if anyone ever gives you strife, you tell them to come to me. We have monitors, so there’s no reason not to be skin-to-skin with him so you can rest, too, and not have to sit in a rocking chair every time he wants to be held.” I thank God for this nurse to this day.

When we came back to the NICU floor, I found an estimation on the computer of time in hospital – it said 118 days, and the weight of that anchor stuck. But I kept praying, and I kept telling God I hoped in Him and trusted in Him even when the trials came, and even when painfully to admit my body didn’t believe. 

Forty days in, Mac was finally on low enough oxygen pressure to try to feed. 

I know it’s crazy to say, but Andy and I agreed that the way Mac pounded on my chest and looked at me, he knew inherently what nursing was. And to everyone’s disbelief, the day he was allowed to nurse, he immediately took to nursing. For a week, he nursed and bottle fed and even earned his NG (nasal feeding) tube to be taken out.

I noticed something I had feared. The doctors said he may become tired and need the tube back. I fed him around the clock, every 2.5 hours, and pumped. I remember one night I woke to feed him at 3 am, and he was too tired to drink, so I tried tickling him and stimulating his cheeks, and doing all the things, but here it was: he was too tired to drink from a cardiac standpoint. What they said was proven true – he had to work, calorically speaking, double what a typical baby would to nurse because of his heart, and he was tired. All my chatting and documentation for days didn’t matter, even when he was getting in the right amount he needed. What is more – the scales didn’t lie. He was dropping weight, and he stopped pooping – all signs he needed more. So back down the NG tube went. It hurt painfully as bad for me. It made him gag and wretch and it felt like he threw up more than he kept in, but it was enough to help him maintain and grow, and we got to go home on day 55 – pretty miraculous considering the beginning prognosis. 

We met the children on the sky bridge, and they got to meet their brother for the very first time. The following days and weeks were filled with equally blissful yet hard moments. All of us were together for walks, and PT appointments, and naps, and snuggles, and story time. But Mac still threw up a lot trying formula to donor milk. It was around the clock feeding, lots of throwing up, and weight checks. 

We wanted so bad for our life to be normal, and even more so for Mac’s life to be normal. We didn’t know that God’s purpose was to be joyful in affliction, joyful in tribulation and faithful in the role He had put us in. In hindsight-gained wisdom, we realize now we were gripping too hard on the ease we wanted for Mac and for our family, and not loosening it to open hands in faithfulness to God.

Over the next year, we had a G-tube placed that was supposed to help but inherently caused 12 hospitalizations of illness to the lungs. During this time, different medicines for prolonged times gave him kidney injury, but they would go back to his baseline. One of which that ultimately almost cost him his life back on a ventilator. A G-tube that had him refluxing and aspirating bile, green phlegm projectile vomiting for weeks.

Mac finally got enough healing to get a second opinion. A lifeline doctor at another institution that was 4 hours away saw the G-tube as a blockage to his digestion and removed it. We spent a month at this hospital, 4 hours away from us, in our hopes and theirs to get Mac to eat. He did for a while, but his stomach motility had to recover, so back an NG tube went. For months he was battling again. There were many days I pushed Mac around a cozy coupe in our living room/kitchen so he wouldn’t throw up or writhe in pain from the motility medications and formula. That was until ultimately we parted ways from them both and started blending his food under nutritionist guidance and stopped the meds to see if he’d be in less pain and regain stomach motility. After a week, he was happier, digesting food, pooping again and able to not throw up as much. This time was very isolating for us, but we grew closer as a family. There were a lot of reading books, creek visits and sitting with our farm animals observing and playing and just being content with a toddler not screaming and maintaining. Finally, insurance gave the green light for a new G-tube placement, and in May 2023, Mac got his new G-tube at 17 lbs, and 2 years old. He started growing again and started to try to walk assisted with push toys.

We had our TEIS director connect us with Villages OT and PT during this time because home visits were really the only viable option, and Mac began to not be as traumatized and afraid. He began to trust again, which also helped the retching and throwing up.

We went for a routine visit with our complex care doctor who decided to pull labs. When I got back to my parents’ house where the big kids had been, I got a call to take him to the ER immediately because his creatinine and bun were very high. The last kidney appointment 6 months before this, the kidney doctor was so happy with his health that she postponed labs for another 6 months. We had repeat labs the next day to the same results. Mac now had stage 4 kidney disease. 

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.