A Gift Of Hope
A Gift Of Hope - After medical complications prevent the Sutton family from conceiving, the road to adoption leads to hardship and hope. Mary Richard, Host: Today is Wednesday April 26. Thank you for using World Radio to start your day. Good morning. My name is Mary Reichardt. The world and everything in it is saddened by the small life next to it.
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A Gift Of Hope
Yesterday you met Laura and Michael Sutton and heard their story of suffering and miscarriage and testimony of God's faithfulness. Today is the second part of that story. This is Anna Johansen Brown from the world. Laura Sutton: It's a butterfly bush. The caterpillars have already eaten most of this last swarm.
ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: For the first two years of living in this house, Laura Sutton didn't even know the bush existed. The previous owner planted a butterfly bush. But he didn't like butterflies. And she spent the first two years dealing with traumatic health issues and a miscarriage.
Laura Sutton: How was Wisconsin? But I don't know what Wisconsin is like. In the fall of 2018, he noticed a butterfly bush. It was completely covered by royal caterpillars. LAURA SUTTON: For some reason it came to me to make a butterfly box. And I'm going to catch some of these monarch butterflies and watch them turn into butterflies.
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He set up a butterfly box and filled it with caterpillars. LAURA SUTTON: What happened next was a fascinating mix of deadly horror and raw beauty. After two devastating miscarriages, Laura and Michael Sutton felt God was closing the door on more biological children. They started thinking about adoption.
This process takes about a year. 50 hours of state training, meetings, interviews, background checks, fingerprinting, $50,000. They had to create a family profile to present to the birth mother. Mothers can then choose who their children go to. It took a few tries. They were rejected several times.
But they eventually met an expectant mother in Florida who was due to give birth in the summer. Laura Sutton: And on August 8th we found out she had a baby, born by emergency caesarean section and 2 months premature. Doctors never knew why they thought Kira needed an emergency caesarean, or why she had it two months early.
Laura Sutton: Now we're waiting in the waiting room. I'm waiting to see if I can see my little Keira at 32 weeks in the NICU. All the questions are running through my head. What is it like to hold a baby in the NICU?
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The Emotional Reservoir Of Hope
is she ok The first time I held Keira, Laura thought it would be hard. You don't have that biological bonding hormone that makes you instantly love that baby. He was so perfect. She was everything I wanted. He was very small, somewhere around 3.5 pounds.
The birth mother signs the document. And legally, Keira was their brand new daughter. Laura Sutton: In the NICU, I met her skin-to-skin and all the nurses reported that she was strong, energetic and doing great at 32 weeks. However, when I got to the hospital the next morning, I realized something was up.
Laura Sutton: People were everywhere, they probably weren't there. Then the doctor came and asked if I know what hypoplastic left heart syndrome is? That night, Kyra's body suddenly began to decline. Her heart stopped. Doctors revived him, but he suffered extensive brain and organ damage.
Keira was then diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Two of his four heart chambers were severely malformed. I can't do surgery. Doctors said it was one of the worst cases they had ever seen. A whole heart transplant could have saved him, but he was too young to survive the operation.
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The Emotional Reservoir Of Hope
When the doctors finally got together for a full staff meeting with Laura and Michael, no one made eye contact with them. It was a place no one wanted to talk about. The doctor finally admitted the truth: there was no way Keira would survive.
We were there. We got to hug him and they pulled all the tubes so we hugged him and sang. We sang to him and prayed until his death. Laura Sutton: A hymn. I don't remember any more. Whatever you wanted to sing at that moment.
The hospital staff offered me an old fashioned real wooden chair in this small dark room full of machines, lights, screens and stainless steel rails. Michael Sutton: How many other family members were sitting in the same chair that you were sitting in with Keira?
How many special final moments were there? How many stories in that one chair. So we didn't know. It could be an hour, it could be 20 minutes. I do not have a clear sense of time. But there were moments when we were able to sit with him.
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Laura Sutton: It was surreal because the room was dark. It was one of these cardiac intensive care units. Everyone is walking. The doctor declared the moment of death, then he left us alone. After that I spent time with her body. They left empty room.
They did not bring any children in the car seat carrier. Laura Sutton: Grief is a funny thing. I remember when Keira came back a few months after she died. I cried. But I was too numb. incredibly numb. That's when he found the butterfly bush.
Then they began to see the tiny caterpillars die and regenerate. Laura Sutton: Do you see the shape of the butterfly's wings? In the first year of the butterfly box, most caterpillars never enter the cocoon. Bitten or killed by parasites.
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