David's Story

by Irene Zundel

Just yesterday, I found myself watching an expectant mother resting in the mall. She rubbed her aching lower back, stretched a bit, and lovingly ran her hand over her growing tummy. She had sparkling eyes, a healthy glow, and a serene smile on her face.

It brought me back to the days when I was happily pregnant with my son, David.


I was excited, like every first-time mother-to-be, and determined to have the healthiest pregnancy possible. I watched my diet, exercised, and read everything I could get my hands on about giving babies a healthy start in life. I faithfully kept my doctors appointments.

I prayed regularly that the Lord would watch over my growing child, and found great comfort in frequently reading my favorite scripture passage:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them;
They outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!

Psalm 139:15-18, New Living translation

As I grew fatter and rounder, my joy increased, and I felt certain everything would go well. Little did I know, my child and I soon would be perilously close to death, and would need a literal miracle from God to stay alive!

I recounted the story of this harrowing experience, and the grace and mercy of the Lord in saving us, to my dear friend, Ethel.

Here is the e mail that I sent her:

Hi Ethel,

17 years ago today, my David came into this world 10 weeks early and weighing in at a puny 3 pounds. Being so small and underdeveloped made the specialists say that he likely wouldn't live, or if he did, he would have numerous problems, in both brain and body.

I first checked into the hospital happily pregnant, but terribly ill with a severe case of toxemia.* My blood pressure was extremely high, and I was in danger of stroke and epileptic seizures, especially since I was epileptic as a child.

I was hooked up to numerous monitors, had an IV pole, and all kinds of tubes coming out of me. Plus, they put a crash helmet on my head to prevent brain injury, should I seizure or have a stroke. Combined with my round belly, I must have been a sight to see!

I was given lung surfactant for David, to lessen respiratory distress after delivery. I had to wait three days for it to take effect and they wheeled me in to have a C-section under local spinal anesthesia. Regular anesthesia would have killed the both of us.

The doctor didn't read my blood profile carefully, so he missed that I had developed a very rare blood complication called HELLP syndrome.** I was unable to clot blood, so they never should have done surgery on me at all.

What happened is that I survived the C-section, but later began to hemorrhage internally, vomit blood, and suffer a stroke which left me utterly paralyzed on the right side, blind in my right eye, and very impaired in my speech. I had to be transfused with 12 units of platelets and plasma. For a couple of days, I slipped in and out of a coma. I was not expected to live.

My husband called for prayer for me and David, and about 300 people lifted us up to the Lord around the clock. It must have worked miracles, because when I came to, I was able to walk to the nursery to see my David on two legs, with two moving arms, seeing out of both eyes and speaking clearly! So much for the effects of the stroke and my sentence of looming death!

David had to remain hospitalized and in an incubator for many weeks, but I was allowed to go home a couple of days later. I was checked by many specialists who gave me numerous drugs, future appointments for check ups and unfortunately, more bad news.

The last doctor I saw told me that the toxemia and HELLP syndrome had destroyed my liver. The term that was used was that my liver was necrotic--or literally dead. I was not expected to survive another 3-6 months!

I was determined to get well, and to give David my breast milk every day in the hospital, even thought they first had to feed him via a tube down his throat. With all the drugs I was given, my child would have been doped to the gills, so I literally flushed all my pills down the toilet---except for my iron tablets (the transfusions made me anemic) and my pre-natal vitamins, because I wanted David to have nutritious milk, not formula from a bottle.

Each day I asked God for strength and healing and went to visit my child every day in the intensive care unit. At my 30 day check up, the doctor was stunned to give me a perfectly clean bill of health. No anemia, and amazingly, I had a perfect liver function test. My liver was brand new and healthy, not dead as I was told on my last day in the hospital!

My doctor, who was Jewish, and not a believer in "faith healing" could not attribute my recovery to medical science. After all, I had flushed all my medicines, and had no organ transplant. And medical science has yet to figure out how to rejuvenate dead organs.

As to David, he is a miracle as well. You see, the experts told me he would be underdeveloped and have heart and/or lung problems and/or water on the brain etc. like so many preemies do. Of course, I never believed the gloom and doom prophecies of his numerous specialists. I had placed my David in God's hands, and I knew he would be fine.

He came home in 6 weeks, instead of the expected time frame of 10, and never suffered any illnesses, infections, or complications, like most babies in neo-natal intensive care units do.

Dr. Joshi, a nice Indian man and a Muslim, gave David 3 complete body scans before he discharged him from the hospital. He repeated the tests three times because his eyes could not believe the results---he was tiny, but perfect in every way!

He said to me, "Irene, I am a Muslim, not a Christian, plus I am a man of science. I do not believe God heals miraculously. But knowing your medical history and David's, and having cared for him daily all these weeks, I can tell you I know of no medical reason for these results, or to explain the fact that you are alive. All I can say is that whomever you pray to, must have heard and answered you. I am please to tell you that David is 100% whole!"

Of course, David's regular pediatricians told me he could have developmental and learning problems because he was premature, and he likely would be more sickly than an average full term baby. Of course, I never believed that either. I left my son in the care of the Lord, and I knew he would be fine.

David was an extremely healthy kid. Never even had measles, mumps, and chicken pox! He had medicine and a doctor's appointment only twice in the first 12 years of his life!

And as for his brain? Well, at age 11 (in sixth grade) he took an eighth grade skills assessment test. In math and English, he had the proficiency of a college sophomore. So much for the doctor's predictions he would have learning lags!

Not a day has gone by since November 5, 1987 that I have not been so happy and grateful for each breath David and I draw. My greatest joy has been to raise and educate a fine and healthy boy. I feel blessed and elated each time I look at him!

I know without a shadow of a doubt we are both alive only because of the grace and mercy of a loving God, who heard the anguished cries of this mother's heart.

Those are my thoughts, on this 17th anniversary of my son's birth and my second chance at life!

Irene
November 5, 2004

Every time I recall the experience of bringing my son into this world, my soul rejoices, and my heart is filled with such overwhelming gratitude. I can truly understand the feelings of the psalmist who wrote:

I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath!
Death wrapped its ropes around me;
the terrors of the grave overtook me.
I saw only trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Please, Lord, save me!”
How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
So merciful, this God of ours!
The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
Let my soul be at rest again,
for the Lord has been good to me.
He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
as I live here on earth!

Psalm 116:1-9, New Living translation

* Toxemia is high blood pressure caused by pregnancy.

** HELLP syndrome is a life-threatening complication of toxemia, which occurs during the latter stages of pregnancy, or sometimes after childbirth.

HELLP is an acronym for the main symptoms- hemolytic anemia, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet count.